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Book 'QjUk. 






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ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



THROUGH TEXAS, 



FROM THE GULF TO THE RIO GRANDE. 




BY 

ALEX K SWEET and J. ARMOY KNOX, 

Editors of " Texas Si/tings:' 



ILLUSTRATED. 

V OF CO.Vg^>. 




HARTFORD, CONN. : 
S. S. SCRANTON & COMPANY. 

1883. 







CorYRIGHT, 1883, 

By sweet & KNOX. 



Jfranklin ^rcss : 

RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 



NOT A PREFACE. 



^>H< 











^ 




CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 1. 

An Eighteen-Carat Desperado. — The Man from Texas. — An Awful Acci- ^^""'^ 
dent. — Heroic Conduct of the Man from Texas. — His Ranch on the 
Rio Frio. — Invited to Texas. — Leaving New York. — Arrival in Texas. 

— Galveston. -Strange and Unique City. — Cosmopolitan Population. 

— Diversity of Languages. — Magnificent Beach. — Tropical Vegetation 
-"Dreams of the Orient." -Board of Health. - Disinfecting Dead 
Letters. -The Pirate Lafitte. - First Great Fraud in Louisiana. -Jeal- 
ousy between Galveston and Houston. — Sand-Crabs and Mud-Turtles 
-Yellow-Fever Germs. -The Infected Coffee-Bean.- Quarantine. - 
Two Thousand Dollars' Worth of Strategy 



CHAPTER II. 



'S 



Sunday m Galveston. — Houses built on the Sand. — Bathing Facilities.— 
Expostulating with a Policeman.- A Popular Fallacy. — The Beach — 
Scanty Costume. — The Man with a Spy-Glass. — The Bar —A Thou- 
sand Per Cent. - Acres of Calico. - At Dinner. - The Doctor . . 28 

CHAPTER III. 

The Procession. -Extraordinary Outfit. -The Doctor's Arsenal.- He want- 
ed to buy Beads for the Indians. -All Aboard for Houston. - Buffalo 
Bayou. -The Magnolia. -Spanish Moss. -Ninety-Five Degrees in the 
Shade. — The Superannuated Old Hen-Coop. — Ten Miles of Historv — 
Dry Seasons. -"Let's Wood Up." -Shooting Alligators. -Devastating 
the Boats Commissary. -The Journey of Life. -Born with the Family 
Plate m his Mouth. - Arrival at Houston. - Houston in 1840. - " Infested 
with Red Ants and Methodists."- Hotel Chair-Sculptors. -Competitive 
Lying. — The Rooter Dog. — " Green from the States." — Tropical Wel- 
come.— One Policeman to Fifteen Saloons .q 

CHAPTER IV. 

"Giving Galveston Hell."- Pluribus Unum, Nox Vomica, Vox Populi - 
Anchoring Galveston Island with an Artesian Well. — Houston as a Sea- 



6 CONTENTS. 

Page. 
port. — White-Winged Messengers of Commerce. — " Damned Sight of 
Curiosity for a Stranger." — A Blooded ' Grade of Mosquitoes. — The 
Muscogee Indian. — " Wild Unpremeditated Eloquence." — " Semi-Bar- 
baric Pictures of Homer." — Howling Jews-Harp, the Indian Chief.— 
The Doctor Disgusted. — Another Idol Broken. — The Noble Savage a 
Fraud. — The Future of Houston 49 

CHAPTER V. 

In Search of Saddle-Horses. — A Caballada. — The Wild Steed of the 
Prairie. — Veils Unearthly and Language Sulphureous. — The Castilian 
Caballo. — Alphabetical Vagaries. — A Picturesque Plug. — The Clay- 
bank Pony. — Our Outfit. — The Texas Saddle. — On Board a Mexican 
Mustang. — A Corner in Corn. — Phenomenally Productive Soil. — Im- 
mense Extent of Texas. — Romance in Figures. — Speaking in Italics.— 
Swearing in Large Capitals. — Invented History. — " Sure, I'm in Texas 
Now." — Land of Desperadoes and Long-Horned Cattle. — The London 
" Spectator," and John Wesley Hardin. — Out on the Prairie. — Bucking 
Ponies. — A Moving Sight. — No Pomp and Circumstance about Him. - 
Bucked 



60 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Brazos Bottom. — Money growing on Trees. — The Oratorical Bore.— 
"Louder! Louder! Louder!" — The Old Plantation before the War.— 
The Negro as a Slave. — The Negro as a Free Man. — "Right Smart o' 
Distance." — "Skirmishin' 'roun' fur Grub." — "I ain't no Flossifer." — 
Los Brazos de Dios — A Depraved Set. — First American Colony in 
Texas. — Free versus Slave Labor. — The Story to.ld by Judge Schultz. 

— An Unadulterated Lie 72 

CHAPTER VII. 

Sugar-Cane and Molasses —" You must furnish your own Barrels." — Mode 
of Travelling —Camping Out. — Unhorsed on the Prairie. — A Woful 
Sight. — After-Supper Reflections. — Night in the Woods. — A Chorus of 
Demons. — The Doctor's Mistake. — A Reservoir of Mirth. — A Ghastly 
Joke. — The Coyote. — Room to think. — A Place to practise Oratory. 

— Dinner in Camp 82 

CHAPTER VIII. 

In Search of Shelter. — " Hello. There!" — The Old Ruin. — The Hospitable 
Southern Planter —The Planter's Residence. — The Colonel. — " The 
Healthfullest Country in the World." — Quinine. — Corn-Bread and Fry. 

— "When I kem Here in '46." — Game. — Threatened with a Chill. — 
Fish-Stories by the Doctor. — Piscatorial Lying by the Colonel. — 
"Chawed up Considerable." — Needing Fresh Air. — "Chills is Noth- 
inV — The Absurd Potato-Bug. — Man's Extremity the Mosquito's Op- 



CONTENTS. 7 

Page. 
portunity. — "The Vittles sot Out." — The " Sweetnin"' gave Out.— 
Thousands of Cows and no Milk. — The Hired Man's Grace before 
Meat. — Four Dollars' Worth of Hospitality. — Filing a Counter-Claim . 95 

CHAPTER IX. 

A Texas Negro. — Was it a Circus ? — Going to Camp-Meeting. — The Great 
Gun of the Occasion. — Discharging the Gun. — The Camp-Ground.— 
" A Mighty Movin' Preacher." — " I's Tolerable, Thanky." — The Negroes' 
Wonderful Power of Memorizing. — The Hymn. — The Prayer. — " Amen ! 
Yes, Lord."— " A Powerful Rattler of Dry Bones." — The Text : " Death 
in de Pot." — "De Kingdom am a comin'." — The Exhortation. — The 
Peroration. — Religious Paroxysms. — Getting Religion. — An Effectual 
Means of Grace. — Improvising. — Lost in the Woods. — Directions as 
to the Way. — A Blazed Road jq3 

CHAPTER X. 

Suffering from Thirst. — In Search of Water. — Deceptive Distances. — A 
Sabbath Day's Journey. — Mr. O'Lafferty burned the Biscuits. — A Con- 
versational Cyclone. — A Malicious Slander. — Matches that would not 
Ignite. — " Good Luck to Yez."— Dry Seasons. —The Norther. — A 
Copious Breeze. — Yesterday and To-day in Texas. — The Stranger and 
the Norther. — Extraordinary Fall of a Thermometer. — The Country 
Store. — The Post-Office. — A Position of Alleged Rest. — A Smart 
Aleck. — Luke Sneed, the Sceptic. — " Thar ain't no Hell." — Pete White's 
Ghost. — News of the Battle. — A Curious Coincidence . 



121 



CHAPTER XI. 

Absorbing Cattle Statistics. — Easy to get killed in Texas. — Effects of call- 
ing Mr. a Liar. — The Man, Dirks.— He wanted to be hung. — No 

Malice, No Murder. — An Atrocious Murder. — Difference between the 
Allegata and the Probata. — Self-Defence. — An Alibi. — A Defective In- 
dictment.— Temporary Insanity. — Sentenced to Death. — Reprieved. — 
He left Texas to get hung. — The Tarantula. — Association of Ideas.— 
Three Old Maids. — The Tune that killed the Cow. — On an Irish 
Mountain. — Tim the Gamekeeper. — The Murderous Old Earl. — The 
White Hare. — The Ghost of the Neighboring Chief. — Lost in the Mists 
of the Mountain. — Reflections on my Sinful Base-Ball Days. — The 
Moonshiners 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Corn-Bread-and-Coffee Hotel. — Eagle Lake. — An Enterprising Landlord. 
— Fooling with a Mortgage. — The Drummer. — " Mine Got ! Vat a 
Schmall Ped is Dot." — He wanted to " Schmoke a Leetle." — The Rem- 
nant.— The Ranch Del Rio. — Trying the Remedies. — He wanted to die 
in Peace. — " Signs " on the Prairie. — Buzzards as Detectives. — Rounding 



'jj 



8 CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Up. — Cutting Out. — Branding. — More than the Calf-Skin would hold. 

— Throwing the Lasso. — No Enterprise about a Cow. — Ear-Marks. — 
The Doctor Rounded Up I49 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Extent of Texas Cattle Business. — Annual Exports. — Mode of Raising 
Cattle. — A Cattle-King. — A Gorgeous Wedding-Present. — John Timon 
of San Patricio. — The Cowbo^^ — The Texas Cattle-Drive. — Two 
Ounces of Truth to the Ton. — Sam Grant, Captain of the Drive. — The 
best Stock- Range on Earth. — Sam Grant's Story. — On the Cattle-Trail. 

— Indians. — Frontier Dick. — The Whiskey all gone. — Sorry he did 

not skin the Savages . 163 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Seedy-Looking Man. — The Real-Estate Agent. — Elastic Tales. — The 
Immigration Agent. — Eloquent Mendacity. — The Old Veteran. — Ex- 
traordinary Mortuary Statistics. — Battle-Scarred Heroes. — Frontier Elo- 
quence. — Shaking him off. — A Drug in the Market. — Health Legend. 

— A Shadow of Antiquity. — Don Jose Ignacio Fuerte Vejez. — Suffer- 
ing for a Funeral. — Back from the Valley of the Shadow. — Was it the 
Padre, or the Devil } 178 

CHAPTER XV. 

We went Fishing. — The Profane General. — A Mexican Panther. — "Dat ar 
Painter Nine Feet High." — A Joke on the General. — Death of Mose 
Patterson's Work-Ox. — English Immigrants. — Letters to the Times. — 
A Briton's Grievance. — Powerful Imagination. — Rainfall in Texas. — 
New Philadelphia. — Raising a Disturbance with a Plough. — "A Blawst- 
ed Country." — Advice to Immigrants. — Riding in a Circle. — He "Got 
Hungrv." — Interviewing an Immigrant. — The English Yeoman. — '*Ich 
Verstehe Sie Nicht." — The Man in Lynn, Mass. — The Doctor tampers 
with the Immigrant Business. — The Texas Navy ..... 191 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Some Scraps of History. — A. D. 15S2. — Slow in Settling Up. — Missions of 
St. Francis of Assisi. — The Monk and the Soldier. — Indios Reduci- 
dos. — Converting Indians with a Thumb-screw. — The Backsliding In- 
dian Che-qua-que-ko. — The Spanish Plan of Salvation. — Religious 
Zeal and Enterprise. — A.D. 1690-1715. — Founding of Missions in Texas. 

— Robert Cavalier de La Salle. — The French Colony. — Our Lady of 
Guadaloupe. — A.D. 1800. — Scientific Explorations. — Philip Nolan. — 
An Empresario. — Flush Times. — He didn't have the Boots. — Yearling 
Bulls the Circulating-Medium. — Ancient Spanish Document. — The Mar- 
quis de Casa Fuerte 206 



CONTENTS. g 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Paptt 

A.D. 1822. — A High Official. — Calling out the Militia. — The Political 
Chief. — Curtailing Civil Liberty. — The First Carpet-Bagger. — Tamper- 
ing with Mexican Soldiers. —The Germ of Texas Liberty, Fifteen Buck- 
shot.— Declaration of Texas Independence. — Cultivating the Germ.— 
Military Events. — The Napoleon of the West. — A.D. 1836. — The Re- 
public of Texas. — Texas Keeping House. — A Strain on the Imagina- 
tion.— A Bad Settlement. — A Preaching. — He didn't Swear. — The 
Wrong Bottle. — Poisoned. — The Snake-Bite Remedy. — Crossing the 
Navidad. — A Ludicrous Act. — A Variety of Fences. — Fencing an Acre 
with a Toothpick 218 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Greyhounds. — Coursing Jack-Rabbits. — " Give the Dogs a Start."— Law- 
lessness in Texas. — A Vendetta. — The Reign of Terror. — John Wesley 
Hardin. — Apologizing to the Widow. — "Didn't know the Stranger." — 

— The Suttons Corralled. — Drawing up a Treaty. — Wes' Hardin inter- 
rupts the Court. — Some Sacred Spots. — The Affluent Editor. — Bluffing 
an Editor. — The Archimedean Lever. — The Texas Rangers. — Wanted 
to be a Ranger. — The "Cavortin' Cataclysm of the Calaveras Canyon." 

— Strategy. — On the Trail. — The Long-Range Roarer of the Sierra 
Mojada. — More Strategy ^^. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A Big Bore. — "Hold up your Hands." — Arrested for Horse-Stealing.— 
About to be Hung. — The Bug from under the Wrong Chip. — Saved.— 
Jim McSnifter. — Luling. — A Railroad Terminus. — A "Hoorah Town." 

— Characteristic of American Civilization. — Mellowing Effects of Time. 

— Irresistible Pioneers. — Monte Joe, the Gambler. — Wore Crape on his 
Hat. — Little May. — The Child and the Birds. — Fairy-Tales. — Death 
of Little May 



CHAPTER XX. 



249 



Leaving Luling. — The " Dry Year." — Couldn't raise even an Umbrella.— 
Climatic Reveries. — The Weather-Sharp. — Grapes. — Fort Bend County 
Claret. — The Marine Editor of the Houston "Age." — Effects of the 
Claret. — "Run for Whiskey or a Doctor." — A Consumptive Cured.— 
"OldSangerfest." — Deadasvun Door-Knob." — Pickling the Remains. 
— " Cured, py Schingo ! " 267 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Approaching San Antonio. — Mexican Teamsters, English Expletives. — Mexi- 
can and Donkey. — Buenos Dias. — Michael Sullivan's Spanish Lesson. — 
"No Entiendo, Senor." — The Haythen. — The "Quaint Old City." — 



lO CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Foreign Aspect of San Antonio. — The Man with a Title. — Royal Order, 
A.D. 1730. — City of the Alamo. — The Alamo. — The Aged Gentleman. 
The Spot where Crockett fell. — Heroic Deeds 281 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Old Spanish Record. — A Proclamation. — The Old and the New. — Licensed 
to Marry. — The San Antonio River. — "Walk your Horses." — Com- 
merce Street. — Via Dolorosa. — Streets built by an Earthquake. — I Sat 
down. — The Legend. — The Padre making Fast Time. — Two Hundred 
Years Ago. — Carrying off a Hole in the Ground 293 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

The Dust. — Spanish Profanity. — Cursing a Steeple on a Church. — The San 
Antonio River again. — The Abbe Domenech. — O Tempora ! O Mores ! 
O Moses! — A Mexican Jacal. — Purple-haired Saints. — The Tortilla. 

— The Tamale. — Evil Association. — Frijoles. — The National Berry. — 
Chastising the Earth with a Hoe 307 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Cultivating Revolutions. — They take any Thing. — Small-Pox. — Whistling 
to their Corpse. — A Donkey. — On the Jury that tried his own Case. — 
The Irrigating-Ditches. — "Ought to be Dammed." — St. Anthony. — 
Jealousy among the Saints. — A Military Saint. — Naming a River . . 317 

CHAPTER XXV. 

A Pre-adamite Reptile. — Ben Milam. — Military Headquarters. — Gen. Ord. 

— Gen. Trevino. — Col. Moca. — "I am a whole Hospital." — Ripe for 
a Lunatic-Asylum. — The War-Department. — Red Tape, — " Respect- 
fully Referred." — The San Antonio Boy. — A Wicked Sell . . .328 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Bull-Fight. — Heroic Matador. — Gored by a Splinter. — Suffering to see 
a Bull-Fight. — Pelon. — " I had it when I was a Child." — "Another 
Stranger fooled on Pelon." — Secret of Commercial Success. — Sunday 
in San Antonio. — The "Garten Laube " on Puritan Intolerance. — A 
Horse of Another Color. — Liver Encourager 343 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Taking the Town. — The Hilarious Cowboy. — He dined from Twelve till 
Three. — Dogs. — The No-hair Dog. — Rats. — A Mexican Mendicant. 

— Speech on Finance. — Receiving a Blessing. — The Judge. — He 
"came with the Cholera." — The Candidate for Coroner. — "Call him a 
Liar." — A Grand Concert. — The Poorhouse. — Progress. — Carretas . 354 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Page. 

A Device of the Early Missionaries. — Wild Riding. — A Stranger named 
McGinnis. — " No Shooting Aloud." — City Ordinances in 1S23. — The 
Chanting Priests. — The Wicked Parrot. — "Ora Pro Nobis." — Jake 
Mullins. — Texas Strawberries. — An Undutiful Son. — Searching for his 
Shotgun 368 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Adels Verein. — Curious Colonization Scheme. — Painfully Exclusive. — Af- 
flicted w^ith a Pedigree. — Lord Palmerston's Wiles. — English Policy. — 
German Emigration. — Prince Solms Braunfels in Texas. — Evidences of 
Business Ability. — Large Operation in Real Estate. — A Man of Low 
Degree. — The Prince's Body-Guard. — " Herr Von Wrede, is that my 
Army t" — A Business Man. — Baron von Meusebach. — Three Thousand 
Destitute Immigrants. — Fritznoodle's Mismanagement. — Only Fifteen 
Hundred Survivors 379 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Stage-Driver. — Stage-Robbery. — The Reporter. — Extremes. — New 
Braunfels. — Phlegmatic Teutons. — Songs of Fatherland. — "Dot Fel- 
low talks about Schneider." — He knew the Mule. — Texas Stockmen. 
The Comal River. — Fritz Schimmelpfenig. — A Man of Influence. — 
Going back to Fatherland. — Incredulity of the Burgomaster. — Paralyz- 
ing the Aristocracy. — He brought his Bones back with him . . . 388 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Red-faced Man. — Down on Style. — " For Heaven's Sake, explain 
Yourself." — Back to San Antonio. — Wool Exchange. — The Sentimen- 
tal Tourist. — Dropping a Tear at the Local Thermopylae. — Raining 
Employees and Tin Dinner-Pails. — The Grand Jury ought to be indicted. 

— The Mission San Jose. — The Sword and the Crozier .... 401 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

A Prominent Desperado. — Offering up a Victim. — Murder. — A Mere For- 
mality. — Brown Bowen. — Off to the Hanging. — Gonzales. — The Lex- 
ington of Texas. — The Bald-headed Man. — He wanted a Brandy Peach. 

— Interviewing a Murderer. — An Excited Lawyer. — " Bring your Chil- 
dren around to see me hung." — Narrow Escape of the Clergyman. — 
Around the Scaffold. — The Execution 414 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A Barbecue. — The Ancient Briton. — The Modern American. — The Sierra 
Mojada Mines. — Gen. Baylor's Silver-Mountain. — "A Good Thing." 

— Chopping out Silver with an Axe. — No Capital needed. — A Sierra 
Mojada Sufferer. — Unrecognizable. — Discovery of the Mines. — The 



12 CONTENTS. 

Page. 
True Version. — Pursued by Indians. — Silver Bullets. — Assaying Mrs. 
Parker's Aged Mother. — Lost Mines. — Vague Traditions. — His Impe- 
rial Majesty, Iturbide. — Anastasio Bustamente. — For the Public Good. 

— The Spanish Plan. — The American Plan 435 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

West of San Antonio. — Cooking a Biscuit. — Awaiting the Result. — Talk 
about Indians. — The Doctor's Threats. — Discretion. — Talking Ollen- 
dorf's Spanish E.xercises. — A Disappointment. — Only a Greaser. — An 
Early Settler. — " Wasn't raised Civilized." — "Want to buy a Coon.?" 

— "Owin'tohow You was Raised." — "Whiskey? I Should Say So." 

— "Stand off Twenty Yards." — Sheep-Raising. — Texas Shepherd. — 

A Sheep Camp. — Sheep Statistics. — A Goose-Ranch .... 453 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

The Sewing-Machine Agent. — The Mesquite-Tree. — Animated Nature. — 
The Doctor's Deadly Aim. — The Doctor attempts a Witticism. — The 
Late Fratricidal Struggle. — Texas during the War. — The Reporter's 
War-Experience. — An Inhuman Order. — The Hireling Foe. — Not 
Much of a Patriot. — Battle of Norris's Bridge. — The Sanguinary Field. 

— No Subject to joke about. — " Freezing his Damned Rebel Legs off." 

— Scouting around the Truth. — Precipitating the Conflict. — Confederate 
Rations. — Federal Relations. — Weeping over an Empty Sardine-Box . 471 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Picket-Duty. — He had No Friends. — " It's Worse than a Coyote." — An 
Historic Plug of Tobacco. — The Carnage at Norris's Bridge. — Shelling. 

— A Surprise. — " Deploy to the Right." — " Disperse, you Blamed Fool." 

— "Hurrah for the Southern Confederacy!" — He kept the Bridge. — 

Bad Old Men 489 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The Indian Country. — Big- Foot Wallace. — "Injuns is Injuns." — The Un- 
tutored Savage. — Commercial Relations. — Wicked Partners. — Travel- 
ling at Night. — Dividing the Responsibility. — The Aboriginal Tramp. — 
Satisfied with Half a Loaf. — Friendship of Jonathan and Pythias.— 
Unprofitable Neighbors. — Terra Desconocido. — Falling Back. — Vio- 
lent Horseback Exercise. —The Heretic Gringo. — Riding a Thousand 
Miles in Ten Days. — Orders in Advance. — A Business-Card. — Not 
like an Indian. — Policy of the United States. — Indian Agents. — Beef 
and Blankets. — A Bare Margin. — Misdirected Compassion . . . 502 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Indian Deviltries. — Guilt of Reservation Indians. — Raids. — No Sympathy. 

— Iniquitous Management. — Abstract G. — List of Killed. — A Cry for 
Help. — Murder -of Gen. Byrne. — Our Paternal Government. — New 



CONTENTS. J . 



Posts needed. -The Soldier who lost his Indians. - Apache John - 
"Heap Hungry, Heap Die."- Gen. Sheridan's Report. -Heriicta 
Hopeless Defenee _ Document E. - Houses filled with Sorrow - 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Overworked Mexican Soldiers. - Duck-Hunting. - Old Colorado. - Two 
Hundred Thousand Cattle Stolen. - Congressional Investigations 

Nationa Pnde.-Talk about War. - Dropping the Subject.- Action of 
the United States. -What caused "Great Irritation."- United-Ces 
Diplomacy -M.ld Language by Hamilton Fish. - English Dptmaty 
— Strong Language by Earl Russell . . . . ipiomacy. 

CHAPTER XL. 

^'TtT'',f t'^°^'-'='=''™--*^°="^ multiplying Unreasonably. -"Texas 
wont hold her Goats."- Figuring on Mules -The Rio Grande -A 

^:^~tc^^.^Z:7^..^--^'^ ---V andV 
r> • twi ivvo i^ountries.— lying \oIunteers with a Ronp 

Pronunciamentos. — Levvinff PresHm:,« m t. / ^^^n a Kope. 

Mexican Brav.Ho t7 I ^'^^^"^^^s. - How Revolutions are started. 
Ed' tor The^ ~ Reporter's Fanfaronade. - A Revolutionary 

Editor. — The Reporter mterviews Himself ... ^ 

CHAPTER XLI. 

'"'t": sTntrVE^'^^Tv ^-;^— Satisfactory Evidence of Death. - 
I he Santa Fe Expedition. - Cutting off his own Ears. -The Reporter 
in Arms again. -Real Hard Services -A Mi]if;,rv iv v ^^^^^)^^ 

visaged War.-Ln.ury of Sleep. - Wild Ho^t^ ^r^^^-™- 

-Th?Sp~^'^ '!^-^"!'' "^r^'"';-^" An-stocratic^BrWhacker 

CHAPTER XLII. 

The Reporter again to the Front. — A Ho^-Storv - ^ ^ • • 

a-^dr:i^;rrT^h^T.-^T"'--"^^ 

^:r;n-n°rtr:"^ '.- ""^-^"---".iReleas^d'M- 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

""'Te '^"Zr °7r'-T'- Journalist. -^^ He tried his Editorials on 

DoV/al rr ^ "^^^^^^^ ^^^ Death. -Cutting off a 

Dogs Tad by Inches. -Novel Mode of disseminating Intelligence - 
A Heavy Editonal.-An Excited Patron. -" Stop my Paper." - A Cam- 



519 



569 



14 CONTENTS. 

paign Document. — The Post-Trader. — A Change of Administration. — 
The F^armer and the Watermelon. — An Agricultural Address. — A Bank- 
rupt Newspaper. — The Daily Bugle 605 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

The Old Hunter. — The Llano Estacado. — The Cruel Mexican Maiden.— 
At the Presidio. — Bracing up the Old Hunter. — An Absurdity. — The 
Flask. — The Mustang Spring. — A Very Clever Gentleman. — A Tem- 
porary Loan. — A Permanent Investment. — Purchasing-Power of $2.50 . 619 

CHAPTER XLV. 

Shaping our Course for Austin. — A Camel Ranch. — The Cactus. — End of 
our Ride. — Arrival in Austin. — Parting with our Ponies. — An Affect- 
ing Scene. — The Capital of the State of Texas. — A Miracle of Archi- 
tectural Absurdity. — The Alamo Monument, — The Legislative Halls. — 
Oil-Paintings. — George Washington. — Sam Houston. — Davy Crockett . 632 

CHAPTER XLVL 

A Sweet Singer. — A Good Grammarian. — Meteoric Genius. — Gems of 
Fancy. — Measuring Poetry by the Bushel. — Shakspeare Discounted. — 
Fifteen-cents-on-the-Dollar Residences. — Victoria R. — Treaty of Annex- 
ation. — Legislative Dignity. — Parliamentary Tactics .... 648 

CHAPTER XLVIL 

The Imported Dog. — Thrall's Hi.story of Texas. — Immigration. — Kind of 
Immigrant Texas needs. — W^hat Texas offers the Immigrant. — Solid 
Facts. — Useful Truths. — The Future of the State. — Leaving Texas. — 
Finis 660 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER I. 




CALLED him a desperado 
and a gambler. 

They said that he *' al- 
ways went heeled, toted 
a derringer, and was a bad crowd 
generally." It was rumored that 
he had killed five, eight, some 
said ten men during his short 
career ; yet no one would have 
thought, to look at the well- 
dressed young man, mild of 
manner, and careful as to the 
parting of his hair, that he was the fire-eater 

he was reputed to be. 

He was as unlike the gory desperado of "the villam-still- 
pursued-her" style of literature as a divinity student is ^^^^^^ 
the life-insurance agent of real life. Tottering under the 
responsibility of a copious diamond breastpin, and carrying a 



M 



i6 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



small cane in his gloved hand, he might have been taken for a 
hotel clerk, were it not for his conciliatory and gentlemanly 
manners. 

When Phil Parker was pointed out to strangers as a gam- 
bler, and a man who had checked several of his acquaintances 
through to the other world, it was always added that he was a 
gentleman for all that, and was never known to take an unfair 

advantage of any of his 
victims, nor to go back 
on a friend. 

This high-toned and 
honorable desperado 
** operated" in one of 
the inland cities of Tex- 
as two years ago. He 
was one of the chief 
features of the place. 
He was a character so 
associated with the city, 
that to speak of it with- 
o u t mentioning Phil 
Parker would be like 
writing a description of 
Sheffield without allud- 
ing to the matter of 
cutlery. 

A stranger stopping 

a few days in the city 

where Parker lived, 

would be apt to leave 

with the impression that the place consisted of a wretchedly 

poor jail, a very handsome court-house, and of Phil Parker and 

several thousand other inhabitants. 

Unlike most professional gamblers, he was seldom "broke." 
When, in the language of the fraternity, he "struck it rich," 
and was in funds, he would sometimes celebrate the occasion 
by a free use of the flowing bowl. This made him enthusiastic 
on the subject of shooting; his enthusiasm culminating in a 




AN EIGHTEEN-CARAT DESPERADO. 



AN EIGBTEEN-CARAT DESPERADO, 17 

visit to some friend's saloon, where he would exhibit his pro- 
ficiency in the use of the revolver by shattering mirrors, lamp- 
chimneys, bottles, and other fragile articles, concluding with 
the laconic remark to the bar-keeper, ''Them's mine: ptt 'em 
on the slate." 

^ His right to indulge in such mild eccentricities was seldom 
disputed, for two reasons, — first, to do so would be a risk of 
the class that insurance companies term extra-hazardous ; and, 
secondly, Phil always dropped in after he became' sober, and 
paid for all the damage done. On several occasions the glass 
of every lamp on the square was shattered by pistol-bullets 
fired by some person or persons unknown. 

In connection with this, it is a noteworthy fact, that, on every 
one of these occasions, Phil Parker was in town, and also, that, 
strange to say, the intelligent and ever-vigilant policeman had 
just stepped around the corner to obtain a clew from a man 
regarding a case that was being " worked up" by that lynx- 
eyed officer (the man wore an apron, and furnished the clew in 
a tumbler). Thus it was that the unfortunate absence of the 
peace-officer at the critical moment prevented him from see- 
ing or arresting the offender. 

The subject of this sketch was very much respected wher- 
ever he was known, especially by the police. 

Mat Woodlief, a noted gambler, once kept a saloon in one 
of the little railroad towns on the Sunset Route. One night 
a big blustering Texan came into the saloon with some frien'ds 
After forming himself into a hollow square around eight or ten 
able-bodied glasses of whiskey, he became boisterous, and be- 
gan exhummg old grievances about the war, and its conse- 
quences to him in the loss of his plantation and negroes (he 
never owned a slave in his life, and the only connection he 
ever had with a plantation was through a hoe-handle). He 
abused the Yankees, calling them liars and thieves, and using 
toward them all manner of vile epithets. He said, - I can make 
the biggest man of them eat dirt, /can. I'm hell on the Wa- 
bash, / am. ThQ durned body-snatchers, they took all of my 
niggers ; but I'll get even with 'em yet. There ain't one of 
them man enough to stand up with me in a fair fight. I just 



i8 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



want one of them to contradict me, an' I'll bore holes in him 
till he can't hold water. I wish one of the cowardly coyotes 
would come along now, till I'd carve out the material for a 
funeral. I'm just pining away for a fight. I'm a raw-hide 
Texan, / am ; but I can lick daylight out'n the biggest Yankee 
ever grew in New England.'.' 

During this harangue Phil Parker, who had been playing 
a quiet game of poker in the back-room, appeared upon the 
scene. He was dressed in black, a linen duster on his left 
arm, and a silk hat of the latest style perched jauntily over 
his right eyebrow. Sucking the end of an ivory-headed walk- 
ing - cane, this eighteen-carat 
desperado sauntered up to the 
bellicose Texan. 

" My friend," said he, '' I'm a 
Yankee from Massachusetts : 
I'm a harmless and inoffensive 
drummer, — suaviter in modOy 
sed fortiter in rCy as we say in 
the classics, — and it is with 
pain that I have heard you ven- 
tilate your opinion as you have 
just now done. I do not like 
to hurt your feelings, sir : but my 
duty, under the circumstances, 
compels me to tell you that you 
are a coward ; my regard for truth causes me to remark that 
you are a liar ; and my wish for a candid interchange of com- 
pliments prompts me to state that I do not think you are brave 
enough to kill a worm, nor that you have the courage to quar- 
rel with a crippled flea." 

The warlike mutilator of Yankees was speechless with sur- 
prise. The temerity of the man from Massachusetts horrified 
him. 

As Parker concluded his remarks with a bow, the big Texan 
was boiling over with suppressed rage, and attempted to draw 
his pistol ; but, before his hand touched the stock, a bullet from 
Parker's six-shooter clipped the lobe off his ear, and the weapon 




THE BELLICOSE TEXAN. 



AN AWFUL ACCIDENT. 1 9 

itself descended on his head, and stretched him senseless on 
the floor. Parker, assisted by one of his friends, placed the 
unconscious man in a hack, drov^e him to a drug-store, had 
a doctor sew up the wounded ear, and instructing the druggist 
to "tell that blowhard that he has been fooling with Phil 

Parker of , who has marked him with his private ear-mark," 

returned to finish his game in the back-room of Woodliefs 
saloon. 

-Two years after the date of the occurrence described above, 
I spent six days in a little town in one of the New-England 
States with Phil Parker. I did not know then, nor for some 
time afterwards, who he was. During those six days I knew 
him only as '' the man from Texas." 

When I first met "the man from Texas," he wore a wide- 
brimmed black sombrero, ornamented with a silver cord and 
tassel. His long boots of alligator-skin reached to his knees ; 
and between the crown of the one and the soles of the others 
there was six feet two inches of a man whose equal was not 
in Warren County on the day the train went through the 
bridge. Before the accident, he was sitting in the smoking-car, 
with his feet out of the window. His coat was off, and he was 
smoking" cigarettes ; the train rushing along at the rate of thirty 
miles an hour, panting through cuttings, rattling over trestles, 
and shooting around curves, like a house on fire. It was a sad 
accident. The alliterative head-lines in the newspapers next 
morning spoke of it as, — 

AN AWFUL ACCIDENT! 



DIRE AND DREADFUL DISASTER ! 

BROKEN BRIDGE ! 

ELEVEN LR^ES LOST ! 

PARALYZED PASSENGERS ! 

BRUISED AND BLEEDING BRAKEMEN 

ETC., ETC., ETC. 



The blame was widely distributed. The directors, the engine- 
driver, and the rotten timbers, — all had their share of censure ; 
but the praise was all for one man. He it was who carried the 



20 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

scalded and disfigured engine-driver up on the bank, getting 
the skin burnt off his right hand while doing so. Up to his 
neck in water, he wrenched the window out of a car, and saved 
an old lady's life. He tore handkerchiefs into strips, and 
bound up wounded arms and legs. He organized those who 
were unhurt, and directed their efforts in rescuing the more 
unfortunate passengers ; and, after all who were alive had been 
placed out of further danger, he rushed into the burning 
express-car, and saved a dog that was chained, and in danger 
of burning to death. He procured restoratives from the neigh- 
boring farmhouses, and staid with the people until the relief- 
train arrived. He did the physical labor of ten men, though 
suffering from a burned hand and a crushed foot. His praise 
resounded through all the valley that day. In the excitement 
of the moment, no one thought to ask his name. We spoke 
of him as "the man from Texas." 

His injuries compelled him to remain over at the next town. 
With saddle-bags on his arm, he passed out of the depot, mod- 
estly bowing in response to the hearty cheers from those he 
had assisted in their hour of need. 

I stopped in the same town for the purpose of having some 
slight injuries which I had received attended to. ''The man 
from Texas" and I stopped at the same hotel. We soon became 
acquainted ; but, while he staid in the town, no one found out 
what his name was. On the hotel register he had written what 
the passengers on the wrecked train called him, — " the man 
from Texas." 

I was very much interested by his tales of frontier life. 
Without a trace of boastfulness in his tone, he spoke of his 
twelve thousand head of horned cattle, his herd of eight hun- 
dred horses, and his army of vaqtieros and herders who attended 
to his stock. He described the pleasures of hunting antelope 
and buffalo on the plains, of landing four-pound trout on the 
banks of the beautiful San Marcos, and of shooting alligators 
in the bayous and lagoons of Eastern Texas. He gave me a 
cordial invitation to ''come and stay a month or two" at his 
ranch on the Rio Frio. 

I had purposed taking a holiday of six months, and spending 



LEAVING NEW YORK. 21 

it in travel through Europe ; but I changed my intention when 
I had listened for a few hours to descriptions of life in the Lone 
Star State from the lips of "the man from Texas." And when 
he spoke of the health to be found on the Western prairies, the 
clear air, the pure water, and the beneficial influence of exer- 
cise derived from a travelling copartnership with a Texas or 
Mexican pony, I at once decided to change the intended route 
of travel, and instead of walking, knapsack on back, over the 
beaten tracks of Europe, to take a trip through the compara- 
tively unknown wilds of Texas on board of a Mexican mus- 
tang. 

"The man from Texas" did not tell me his name; but he 
described the location of his ranch, and told me how to reach 
it. I accepted his invitation ; and, although I met him after- 
wards, I never saw his ranch. I subsequently discovered that 
it was identical with the location of his castle in Spain. 

The result of my acceptance of his invitation was to me 
three months of a vagabond life on the western frontier of 
Texas, thirteen weeks of Bedouin-like meanderings among the 
cattle on a thousand hills, out of reach of the newsboy's cry, 
and far from the sound of the street-car bells. 

I left New York on the fourth day of May, on board the 
steamship " City of San Antonio," and arrived in Galveston on 
the 14th of the same month. 

Galveston, as seen from the deck of the steamboat, is a 
strange and unique city. It is built on an island of sand, no 
part of which is more than six feet above high-water mark. 

As the sun went down below the low coast-line, we sighted 
the city, which lay apparently on the bosom of the placid waters 
of the bay. Its towers, domes, and minarets, glittering in the 
last rays of the setting sun, would have reminded one very 
much of Venice, if Galveston had had any towers, domes, and 
things. 

The short twilight gave place to clear moonlight, as we 
steamed up the bay. Looking across at the city cradled on 
the bosom of the deep, with the silver radiance of the moon- 
light bathing her white buildings and sandy streets in a flood 
of tender light, there is a weird and mystic influence in the 



2 2 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

scene : a sort of baseless-fabric-of-a-vision feeling comes over 
the beholder ; and, if there is a sentimental spark in his nature, 
he ''drops into poetry.'* 

Galveston is the chief port of Texas, and is in communica- 
tion, by steam and sail ships, with all parts of the commercial 
world. The island on which the city is built is some thirty 
miles long, and from one to two miles in breadth. It is sepa- 
rated from the mainland by a bay several miles wide, affording 
a safe harbor for light-draught ships. Railroad bridges built 
on piles connect the island with the mainland. These bridges 
are each one mile in length. Galveston Island is celebrated 
for its beach, which runs the full length of the island on the 
ocean side. When the tide is out, it is one of the finest drives 
in the United States. So smooth and hard is it, that the im- 
press of a horse's hoof is barely discernible. 

Except in the business part of the city, almost all the houses 
are built of wood, — light, airy structures, painted white, with 
verandas and galleries (usually on the south side), where, in the 
summer-time, the inhabitants sit in the cool of the evening, 
enjoying the balmy Gulf-breezes and the perfume of the olean- 
der and orange trees. 

The oleander grows to a height of twenty feet, and many of 
the streets are lined with them on both sides. The orange 
grows and matures in most of the gardens ; and, in the fall, the 
rich golden fruit, with its tropical suggestions, adds much to 
the attractions of the place. 

A more cosmopolitan population than that of Galveston does 
not exist anywhere in the world. All the nations of the earth, 
and the islands of the seas, are represented on her streets. 
The musical' nobleman of sunny Italy, and the deceptive Mon- 
golian, are as much at home as the festive Milesian or solid 
Teuton ; and, for diversity of languages, a Galveston street- 
corner crowd could beat the builders of the Tower of Babel 
in one inning, with several languages to spare. 

The following is from a Texas paper : — 

" The stranger from a colder clime and less flowery land, who visits Gal- 
veston in early spring, and rambles about that portion of the city devoted 
to private residences, is involuntarily thrown into ecstasies. Here he in- 



PIRATE LAFITTE. 



^Z 



hales the perfume of the orange-blossom, and gazes in rapture upon the 
never-ending oleander. Here are vine-covered bowers in the full glory of 
verdure, and walks glittering with the beautiful and myriad-hued shells 
gathered from the beach. Here are flowers so rich in hue and variety as to 
awaken dreams of the Orient." 

Now, I believe every word of the above to be true, not even 
excepting the "ecstasies;" but why did he not add, "Here are 
back-yards and alleys, whose exuberant perfumes and exhala- 
tions are, to say the least of them, painfully Oriental " } There 
is nothing improves fiction 
so much as a little season- 
ing of truth. 

It is claimed that the 
Board of Health uses every 
precaution to keep the city 
clean, even going to such 
extremes as to use disin- 
fectants to prevent the dead \ 
letters at the post-oflfice ^ 
from emitting an offensive 
odor. 

In 1 77 1 Galveston Island 
was the rendezvous and 
headquarters of the world- 
renowned pirate Lafitte, and 
his followers. It was then 
called Campeachy Island. 
On this lonely shore the 
gentle buccaneer garnered his prizes, buried his treasures, and 
despatched his prisoners. To the philanthropist of to-day it is 
gratifying to learn, from the pages of history, that Jean Lafitte 
never roasted a prisoner when a rope or shotgun was handy ; 
and it must have soothed the last moments of many of his 
victims to know that he, the Bold Rover of the Spanish Main, 
was "a man of polite and easy manners, dressed in green uni- 
form and otter-skin cap." 

It has been said that Lafitte was a man of poetic tempera- 
ment, little versed in the world's guile and craftiness. I think 




PIRATE LAFITTE. 



24 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

this truth is strongly padded with fiction, and that the state- 
ment is not strengthened by the following facts : — 

When the British were preparing to attack New Orleans, 
Commodore Percy, commanding the English naval forces, sent 
the war-brig " Sophia " for Lafitte, and offered him a commis- 
sion in the navy and one thousand pounds sterling for his 
assistance and co-operation in the attack on New Orleans. 
Lafitte pocketed the bullion, and said he would call around in 
the morning, and inaugurate hostilities. In fact, he committed 
himself so far as to intimate that he would " make it devilish 
hot in New Orleans." That night, however, Lafitte called on 
the Governor of Louisiana, and offered his services against the 
British, in consideration of a full pardon for all his past offences 
against the United States. The offer was accepted; and Lafitte 
and his followers intimidated the British with such success that 
they left so utterly beaten, that this the first " great fraud in 
Louisiana " was never even investigated. It was left for the 
historian to record the fact, that bulldozing is not a thing of 
yesterday, but an institution of the State, venerable with the 
mildews of antiquity, 

I have always thought it a pity that Lafitte was born before 
this time. What a fine field there would be for his disinter- 
ested statesmanship in the halls of the United-States Congress 
to-day ! I know he would feel so much at home among the 
many other th — thrifty representatives. 

The city of Houston, fifty miles from Galveston, situated at 
the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou, is a commercial rival 
of Galveston. Each tries to supplant the other in the affec- 
tions of the country merchants, and in securing the trade of 
the interior. There is an amount of jealousy exhibited in a 
small way by the inhabitants of both cities ; and the calling of 
each other names, such as ** sand-crabs " and *' mud-turtles," is 
one of the harmless ways in which they ventilate their spleen. 

Sometimes they take a more practical way of evincing their 
fraternal feelings, and nine sand-crabs go up to the Bayou City, 
and, with an equal number of mud-turtles, contest the national 
game. The appearance of the contestants next morning is 
not always unconnected with sticking-plaster ; but, as the 



YELLOW-FEVER GERMS. 25 

wounds are seldom fatal, these games are of little practical 
benefit to the community. 

There is, both in Galveston and Houston, a society for the 
promotion of commercial relations with the interior, called the 
Board of Health. The Board hibernates during cold weather, 
but comes out fresh and ready for work in the summer. 

The duty of these Boards is to find yellow-fever germs. This 
is the way they go about it : — 

Some time during the month of June, the Board of Health at 
Galveston receives information that a man has arrived at New 
Orleans, who, within twenty-one days, has drunk a cup of cof- 
fee, the bean from which the coffee was made having been 
imported from Rio, where yellow-fever was epidemic last year. 
As there is cause to fear that a germ may have concealed 
itself in a bean, a sort of stowaway germ, and conveyed itself 
into the man's stomach, and in consequence of the danger of 
infection, the president of the Board of Health of Galveston 
telegraphs to the Board of Health at New Orleans, stating that 
next day Galveston will quarantine against New Orleans. 

The people of Galveston regret the necessity that compels 
them to use these stringent measures ; but the health of the 
State must be cared for, even though it should prevent the 
interior merchants from receiving goods from New Orleans, 
and cause them to patronize the Galveston market. The citi- 
zens of Galveston believe in the proverb that says " Preven- 
tion is better than cure." 

The Galveston Board of Health telegraphs to the Board of 
Health at New Orleans every day, and sometimes oftener, and 
the New-Orleans Board of Health answers back. This is the 
style of telegrams : — 

Galveston, Tex., Aug. 4, 188-. 
To President Board of Health, Neiv Orleans. 

It is rumored that there are three cases of yellow-fever in your city. 
How is it ? 

President Galveston Board of Health. 

Then the president of the New-Orleans Board of Health 
answers, and says, — 



26 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"The health of New Orleans never better; not a single case of fever in 
the city." 

They keep this up for several months. 

It is said that the Galveston Board has its telegram-blanks 
lithographed by the hundred, leaving the number of ''rumored" 
cases blank, so that, when they want to send off a telegram for 
the purpose of assuaging public anxiety, they have nothing to 
do but to fill in the numeral according to the size of the rumor. 

As soon as the Galveston Board gets down to steady work 
sending off telegrams, the president of the Houston Board 
begins to think that he had better be doing something to earn 
his salary and the affection of the citizens of Houston. So he 
discovers that on board of a schooner that sailed for New 
York, calling at New Orleans, and now bound for Galveston, 
there is a passenger who sat at the same table with the man 
who drank the germ-impregnated coffee ten days before, and 
who saw the man drink the coffee without any sugar or other 
disinfectant. 

The members of the Board of Health at Houston meet, and 
edit a telegram, which they forward to the Board at Galveston. 
The telegram states, that if the Galveston Board allows the 
schooner to come into port, or discharge her cargo or passen- 
gers, Houston will immediately quarantine Galveston. The 
Houstonians dislike very much to be compelled to appear so 
particular ; but the germ must be kept away from the people of 
the interior, even if, in doing so, the people of the interior be 
kept away from Galveston, and therefore be compelled to buy 
their goods in Houston. The people of Houston believe in 
the maxim, " Self-interest is the first law of nature." 

Sometimes, when Houston quarantines Galveston for a length 
of time, the sand-crabs become restless : they want to leave 
their sand-bar, and go out among the green fields, and by the 
side of the murmuring brooks, of the interior. Or perhaps a 
mud-turtle from Houston may be in Galveston when the quar- 
antine edict is pronounced, and he wants to get back home 
because he has business to attend to there, and because, under 
the circumstances, the society of the inhabitants of the sand- 
bar is oppressive. He cannot get away, however ; for the road 



Q UARANTINE. 2 7 

to Houston and the interior is guarded by quarantine officers, 
assisted by long-range duck-guns. 

On one occasion during the quarantine season (in 1873, I 
think), the Galvestonians determined to go to Houston anyhow. 
They sent a delegation to test the matter. The delegates pro- 
ceeded, boldly and defiantly, to within a short distance of the 
Houston city limits. They were beginning to feel proud of 
their success, when they received a check. The Houston Board 
of Health checked their progress. The delegation expostulated ; 
but it was of no use. Then the Houston Board of Health re- 
ceived, in its turn, a check, — on the First National Bank, for 
two thousand dollars. The delegation went into Houston. 
Next day the quarantine was raised. When it comes to strat- 
egy, the crab gets away with the turtle. 



CRAB AND TURTLE. 



28 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER II. 




WAS Sunday ; and I strolled 
along the clean, broad, straight 
streets, and wide, smooth side- 
walks, shaded by fragrant 
oleanders. The private resi- 
dences, particularly those on 
a very broad fashionable ave- 
nue that ran east and west, 
were large and elegant. The 
stores on the strand were four 
or five stories high, massive in 
structure, and most of them built of brick. The island itself 
seemed to be composed entirely of sand. These facts put me 
to thinking. I had been taught to believe that every thing 
printed in the Bible was solid fact, — to believe it literally; 
and I was never permitted to get over or around a difficult 
place by taking it for granted that the meaning was allegorical 
or symbolical. I had swallowed Jonah and the whale without 
much trouble ; and I assisted, so to speak, in constructing the 
universe in six days of twenty-four hours each. I had always, 
as a boy, entertained serious doubts about the literal truth of 
some of the Bible statements being intended for facts ; but 
there was one assertion, to question the truth of which never 
occurred to me. I had never doubted but that the story of the 
foolish man who built his house upon the sand was founded on 
an actual occurrence. Nothing could be more natural than 
that an edifice built on such an uncertain foundation should 
fall as soon as it was subjected to the action of the elements. 



HOUSES BUILT ON THE SAND. 29 

Here in Galveston I filed away this popular fallacy along with 
other delusions of my youth. All around me were thousands 
of substantial houses built on the sand, and showing no signs 
of crumbling to pieces. I was bewildered. Meeting an old 
gentleman of clerical appearance, I stopped him, and asked him 
if it ever rained in Galveston. 

" Oh, yes ! we have such heavy rains that the streets are 
sometimes flooded." 

" Why, then, do not these houses fall } They are built on the 
sand, and they ought to fall." 

"My dear sir, you now refer to a subject that has caused me 
more mental distress than any other. Every thing else in the 
Bible, except that sand parable, I can explain. Why these 
houses do not fall, being built on the sand, is the only ques- 
tion connected with the Bible teaching that I cannot answer. 
I have the matter under advisement, however." Bidding me 
good-day, he went into a large brick church on Broadway. 

I met at the hotel a very intelligent gentleman, who gave 
me quite a satisfactory explanation of the matter. He was 
a practical architect, and knew whereof he spoke. He said, — 

"There is no greater mistake than to suppose that sand, and 
particularly wet sand, does not make a good foundation. If 
you dig down a foot and a half anywhere on Galveston Island, 
you strike wet sand. You can erect the largest edifice in the 
world on wet sand ; and it will never show the slightest sign 
of sinking, and the walls will never crack." 

"That is certainly very strange." 

" Yes, but it is a fact all the same. Sand makes a founda- 
tion ten times better than the black, waxy earth they have in 
the interior of the State. Nearly all the buildings in Houston 
are cracked. It is almost impossible to prevent them from 
falling, even when they have mortgages on them. When they 
undertook to build the big market-house of Houston, they 
were very much puzzled to know how to obtain a secure foun- 
dation : so they sent to New York for an architect to superin- 
tend the job. The man understood his business : so he told 
them their soil was not suited to build upon, and that, 'if they 
wanted their market-house to stand, they should bring up 



30 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

several hundred car-loads of sand from Galveston Island, the 
sand to be used as a foundation." 

"What did the Houston people say to that?" 

** They did not say much. They were too mad to talk. 
They thought the architect had been hired by the Galveston 
people to insult them. J don't know what became of the man : 
he was never heard of afterwards." 

I perceived that my new acquaintance shared the popular 
prejudice against Houston. What he said, however, about 
sand being a good material for a foundation, is true : hence the 
mystery about the man who built his house on the sand is 
darker and more impenetrable than ever. 

After dinner I strolled out to inspect Galveston's greatest 
natural attraction, the beach. Imagine a floor of fine, hard, 
level sand, a hundred yards wide and thirty miles long, with 
the blue Gulf breaking upon it, and you have Galveston Beach. 
The blue waves, the still bluer sky, and the soft Gulf-breeze 
blowing steadily inland over the white-capped billows, make an 
impression that is not readily effaced from the mind of a person 
of poetic temperament ; although he will doubtless think, that, 
for twenty cents, a piece of soap ought to be furnished with 
the bathing-suit by the blear-eyed outcast who has charge 
of the bathing-facilities. On Sunday afternoons the beach is 
the fashionable promenade. Thousands of well-dressed ladies 
and gentlemen, many of them accompanied by children, prob- 
ably their own, saunter along the edge of the Gulf, watching 
the flight of the white-winged sea-gull, the lofty plunge of 
a lonely-nosed pelican, who is after some little fish whose 
acquaintance he is anxious to make. The young bloods of the 
city dash past in their fancy turn-outs ; for the beach is almost 
the only part of the island where they can drive, as almost 
everywhere else the sand is too deep. Although the beach 
was dotted with numerous bath-houses, few persons were dis- 
porting themselves in the brine, except at the end of the 
streets,- where the street-car line terminated. At that point 
was gatRered an immense crowd, composed almost entirely 
of well-drbssed -"gentmen. Many of them were quite well 
advanced ii-^ years ; bi the majority seemed to be of that age 



SCANTY COSTUME. 3 1 

at which it becomes difficult to say, at first glance, where the 
boy leaves off, and the man begins. They were all gazing 
intently at some persons who were in the surf. By the earnest 
expression of their countenances, and the close attention they 
paid, I imagined that the disciples of John the Baptist were 
performing their ancient rite on some persons who desired to 
join the church. I took a seat on a bench beside a pleasant- 
looking gentleman, and remarked, — 

" The Baptists seem to be pretty numerous in Galveston. 
Are all those gentlemen who are looking on Baptists } " 

The man looked at me very intently ; but, before he could 
reply, a female shriek was heard, and a roar of laughter went 
up from the assembled congregation on the beach. Never hav- 
ing heard of any such hilarity being a part of the ceremony of 
baptism, I was very much surprised. My companion explained, 
that on Sunday no respectable persons went into the surf, and 
the beach was given up to the demi-monde. The parties in the 
water, upon whom I had supposed baptism was being per- 
formed, were members of a local variety-show, who were cut- 
ting up all manner of antics in the waves. The crowd of 
well-dressed gentlemen were not religiously engaged, as I had 
supposed. 

" But are bathers allowed to appear in such a scanty cos- 
tume } " I asked ; for the female bathers were dressed so lightly 
as to justify the inference that the water of the Gulf of Mexico 
was too warm to admit of much clothing being worn. 

" There is a city ordinance forbidding such exhibitions, and a 
policeman is kept out here on the beach to arrest all persons 
who violate the ordinance ; but I suppose, this being Sunday, he 
is in church, and these parties are here taking advantage of his 
absence. No, by Jove ! there he is ! " and my companion 
pointed to a man in a blue coat, who was leaning over his 
horse's neck, intently gazing on the aquatic sports. 

"Why does he not arrest them .'* " I asked. 

" He will probably arrest them as soon as he has taken a 
good look at them. He has to look at them closely in order to 
identify them in court. As soon as he is satisfied that he will 
know them again, he will take them in charge." 



32 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Suddenly the officer of the law aroused himself, and stood up 
in his stirrups. 

"Now he is going to take them in out of the damp," re- 
marked my companion. At a break-neck pace, the ever-vigi- 
lant policeman charged down the beach, past the scantily 
dressed bathers, until he checked up his foaming steed several 
hundred yards beyond. '' Hello, there ! " he shouted in a voice 
that silenced the tumultuous roar of the Gulf. Slowly a small 
boy emerged from the waves, and, trembling in every limb, 
sought the hostile shore. A well-dressed gentleman, evidently 
the father of the boy, expostulated with the policeman, who 
said, '' It's agin the city ordinance for anybody over six years 
of age to go in bathing, unless he is covered from the neck to 
the knees." 

" But that boy is not six yet," replied the father. 

** He looks as if he was six and a half, at least," said the 
policeman, turning his head modestly away from the boy. 

" And his bathing-suit comes down to his knees," continued 
the father, pointing to the dripping garments of the shivering 
boy, on whose face all manner of misery and distress was 
depicted. 

" It's at least an inch above his knees, and that is an immod- 
est exposure," replied the guardian of the morals of the city of 
Galveston, looking furtively at the boy, and instantly looking 
away again. 

Just at this crisis a shout went up from the crowd already 
mentioned, who were looking at the exhibition in the surf ; and 
the policeman, fearing that he was missing something, galloped 
hastily back. When I got up to leave, that policeman still had 
his eagle eye riveted on the violators of the bathing ordinance, 
all of whom were over six years of age, and none of them were 
covered from neck to knee. The little boy who had so out- 
raged the public sense of propriety, profiting by the oppor- 
tunity, had made good his escape. 

Probably no city in the United States enjoys such bathing- 
facilities as does this Texas seaport. A finer beach for bathing- 
purposes could not be made to order. The water deepens very 
gradually, there is no undertow, and all the conditions are 



THE MAN WITH A SPY- GLASS. 33 

favorable to making Galveston a first-class watering-place. 
One would suppose, that, during the extreme heat of summer, 
Galveston would be crowded with people from the interior of 
the State ; but such is not the case. On the contrary, the com- 
paratively few people from the interior who go there to spend 
the summer do not equal in number the Galvestonians who go 
off to Long Branch and Saratoga, where it is actually many 
degrees hotter than it is on their own island. One reason why 
so few Texans take advantage of the bathing-facilities of Gal- 
veston is the dread they have of yellow-fever, which in former 
years used to be almost the only disease people died of in Gal- 
veston. When a prominent citizen, instead of dying of yellow- 
fever, died of delirium tremens, or went off with a shark while 
fishing, an inquest was held, and a verdict rendered to the 
effect that the deceased came to his death in an improper and 
illegitimate manner, and that he was guilty of culpable negli- 
gence in so doing. Of course, the natives became used to 
yellow-fever, and in time got to liking it, although a great 
many never gave it a second trial. Strangers, who had an im- 
perfect idea of the dread disease, conceived a prejudice against 
it, and refused to go to Galveston to amuse themselves in 
summer. Yellow-fever in Galveston has become a thing of the 
past ; but the scare is as big as, if not bigger than, it ever was. 
There has not been a case of yellow-fever in Galveston for 
many years ; but that fact, instead of re-assuring the people of 
the interior, has precisely the opposite effect. They say, " If 
there has been no yellow-fever in Galveston for so long, they 
will be sure to have it this year;" arguing on the principle, that, 
after a man at billiards has made an incredible number of 
points, the next shot is almost sure to be a miss. For these 
reasons, Galveston is deserted in summer. 

As I walked along the beach with my newly-made acquaint- 
ance, we met a very elegantly dressed old gentleman with a 
white head, who, sitting in his buggy, was looking at the 
female bathers with a spy-glass four feet long. 

" What do you mean by looking at the bathers with that spy- 
glass } " asked my companion indignantly. 

" It is not my fault that my eyesight is impaired. I am an 
3 



34 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



old man, and have to use a spy-glass." And he kept on taking 
observations. 

The favorite topic of conversation is the condition of the 
bar, on which the water is so shallow that large ships find it 
profitable to stay outside. If there were water enough on the 
bar to allow vessels to come up to the wharves, Galveston 
would have a great deal more trade than she has. The trouble 
is, that the bar cannot be removed without money ; and a great 
deal of money is required for the purpose. When it comes to 




ADMIRING NATURE. 



eating up money without furnishing any practical equivalent, 
Galveston bar is almost a rival to a four-horse daily paper in a 
one-horse town. The United-States Government has been 
making alleged efforts to remove the bar, but the appropria- 
tions have been too small. The Government might keep on, 
through the endless ages of eternity, appropriating seventy 
thousand dollars a year ; and at the expiration of that term 
there would be just about the same depth of water as there 
always has been, which is about twelve feet, although it usually 
averages a foot or so more whenever a reporter goes out with 
some interested parties to inspect the bar, and the contractors 



THE BAR, 35 

furnish champagne, etc. If the reporter enjoys himself very 
much, the depth of water on the bar has been known to in- 
crease to sixteen feet ; but that is only on extraordinary occa- 
sions. The ship-captain whose vessel draws more than twelve 
feet, reads these deep-water statements, and believes them. 
He hoists anchor, and endeavors to come into harbor ; but he 
gets stuck on the bar, and stays there. The ship springs a 
leak, and the owners in England despair when they hear of it. 
They telegraph back to sell the ship before she goes to pieces, 
which is done. The Galveston merchant buys her up for a 
couple of hundred dollars, hires a tug to pull her off the bar, 
pumps the water out, refits her at a trifling expense, gives her 
a new name, and holds a banquet on board, at which the press 
is represented, of course, and the great natural advantages of 
Galveston, and the enterprise of the Island City, are discussed. 

I forgot to mention that this information was imparted to 
me by a Houston man. He stated positively that the local 
journalists were the only persons or agencies that had ever 
succeeded in deepening Galveston bar ; also that the greatest 
material advantage of Galveston was that bar ; that foreign 
vessels got wrecked on it without being damaged to any ex- 
tent, and having been bought up for a song by the Galveston 
merchant, at a slight expense for refitting, yield a profit of 
many thousand per cent. I subsequently found that the whole 
story was a Houston slander, gotten up with a view to ship- 
wrecking the prosperity of Galveston ; and I merely refer to the 
matter to illustrate the rivalry between the two seaports. 

The merchants of Galveston do an immense business, and 
some of the establishments are very extensive indeed. I was 
shown over one establishment by the urbane proprietor. All 
proprietors are urbane. The first thing I was shown was a 
long row of domestics. I do not mean a long line of menials 
drawn up in a row, but a long display of cotton goods. There 
was enough calico in sight to have furnished every woman in 
the country with a dress, with a large enough remnant left over 
to furnish the baby with a wrapper. The proprietor merely 
waved his hand at the display in an offhand sort of a way, and 
said, "As you see, our calicoes have not yet arrived. We have 



36 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

only a few remnants left over from last year's stock. I really 
wish we had a few prints to show you." 

We next passed through the blanket department. They 
were stacked up in double rows ten feet high for a few hun- 
dred yards. 

"As you observe," remarked the merchant, "we are just 
about out of blankets. We have a few cargoes on the way, but 
at present we have hardly as many as it would take to supply 
the Houston market for a year." 

And so it was all the way through. I was requested not to 
pay any attention to about an acre of every imaginable kind of 
notions. He said that it was not the right time of the year for 
notions. Those that I saw were merely kept on hand to supply 
the Houston merchants, and for samples. The counting-room 
was swarming with a small army of book-keepers and clerks. 
He looked over the busy scene, and said, — 

" There is nobody here. Nearly all the regular employees 
have gone to Houston on an excursion. I feel like one who 
treads alone some banquet-hall deserted, after the last reveller 
has been removed by the police. This is the off season, and our 
store looks like a country graveyard ; but it is, of course, a great 
deal more lively than it is in Houston during the busy season." 

To my great surprise, I found an old friend at the dinner- 
table. We used to call him "the doctor" at college, because he 
had attempted the study of medicine. After a cordial interchange 
of greetings, and a mutual order for soup, the doctor said, — 

" Who would have thought it ? " ' 

I echoed the doctor's question. 

"Why! I thought you were in Europe," said he in an injured 
tone. 

" And I supposed you were in California." 

" What brought you here anyhow .'' " 

"I came to see — well, to see" — 

" Yes, I see you are evidently at sea," said the doctor, who, 
besides possessing a large share of that popular moral quality 
called "cheek," had a. propensity for puns that had more than 
once caused a coolness between him and some of his best 
friends. 



THE DOCTOR, 



37 



When I inquired why the doctor came to Texas, he intimated 
that fortuitous circumstances and an insecure cellar-o-ratino- — 
his uncle lived only two days after the accident — had enabled 
him to devote his time to the study of doing nothing, and that 
he had taken a fancy to see Texas, shoot buffalo, hunt Indians, 
and — "and that sort of a thing, you know." 

I told the doctor that I had not made up my mind as to 
whether I would devote my attention to shooting Indians and 
buffalo, or not, but that, no doubt, I would meet some of "that 
sort of thing, you know," as I expected to travel across the 




MEETING OF THE DOCTOR AND PARTNER. 



State to the Rio Grande. I. invited the doctor to accompany 
me. 

" Go on horseback } " said the doctor. 

"Yes." 

" Camp out } " 

"I reckon." 

" Lots of Indians on the route, ain't there t " 

'' Qiden sabef' 

" Carry a rifle ? " 

"By all means." 

"Then, by Jove ! you may count on me, and, if possible, let's 
start on the 20th. As Macbeth says, ' The deed I'll do before 
this purpose cools.' " 



38 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER III. 




EIGHT o'clock on the morn- 
ing of the 20th of May, a pro- 
cession might have been seen 
passing across the plank that 
connected the steamboat 
" Charles Fowler " with one of 
Galveston's wooden piers. The 
procession was armed, carried 
saddle-bags, and consisted of 
the doctor and myself. In view of a journey into the domain 
of '*ye wild sauvauges," we had had the hair of our heads cut 
so close that we were almost as bald as the venerable Ethiopian 
renowned in song. We were attired in a costume that seemed 
to be a cross between a second-class tramp's undress uniform 
and the habiliments of a Comanche brave; and attached to our 
person at every point where any thing could be buckled or hung 
were weapons of all sorts, from the murderous Spencer rifle to 
the soothing and medicinal pocket-flask. 

After being interviewed by a reportorial fiend, on the supposi- 
tion that we were the nucleus of "another Mexican revolution," 
we at length got safe on the steamboat bound for Houston. 
Our luggage was also safe, although it looked dangerous. It 
consisted, besides the arsenal before alluded to, of two blankets, 
two saddles, and two pairs of saddle-bags. Each of the latter 
contained one other shirt, several pounds of tobacco, and a 
change of pipes. The doctor wanted to buy two or three 



EXTRAORDINARY OUTFIT. 39 

quarts of glass beads with which to conciliate such Indians as 
we might take prisoners, and would not want to shoot. I de- 
monstrated to him that we had no room in our saddle-bags for 
beads, and that we had better kill all our Indians anyhow. 
He reluctantly agreed with me, and used the moyey he had 
intended to invest in the beads in the purchase of a silver- 
handled hunting-knife, that would be handy in case any scalp- 
ing would have to be done. 

Leaving Galveston, we steamed across the bay, heading for 
the mouth of the bayou. Buffalo Bayou is navigable from its 



EXTRAORDINARY OUTFIT. 



mouth to Houston, a distance of fifty miles, although it does 
not average forty yards in width. Steamers run daily to Hous- 
ton ; but owing to the windings of the bayou, and lack of sea- 
room, they go very slowly, taking ten hours to make the trip. 
The tides ebb and flow in the bayou as far inland as Houston. 

The country on each side is level prairie. We can see very 
little of it, as both banks are high, and covered with a dense 
growth of timber. Often the overhanging branches brush 
against the smoke-stack ; and as we lean over the stern rail, 
while the steamboat makes a sharp curve, we can pluck the 



40 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

gorgeous, wax-like flowers of the magnolia. Flowers of every 
hue and fragrance line the banks ; and high above all towers 
the lofty oak, from the branches of which hang festoons of 
Spanish moss, shadowing all beneath, and giving a sombre and 
funereal appearance to the trees on which it hangs. I do not 
know why, but whenever I see a tree draped in that shaggy 
moss I think of death. 

The mails are landed and received at several points without 
stopping the boat. Occasionally we stop to wood up ; and it is 
an interesting sight to see a gang of semi-nude and perspiring 
negroes throw two or three cords of wood aboard in as many 
minutes. But no other incident worthy of note occurs to vary 
the monotony of the trip. 

The day was hot, — ninety-five in the shade, and a hundred 
and something awful in the sun. After dinner we chose a 
shady place abaft, and for the remainder of the trip tried to 
give ourselves up to the soporific influence of the day, the scene, 
and cigars ; but it was decreed that we should not have peace. 
I had just stretched myself out on a soft plank, with my head 
on a coil of rope, and was beginning to feel comfortable, when 
an old man, who seemed to be on the shady side of one hundred 
and fifty winters, came and sat down beside me. He had only 
one eye and two visible teeth, but what he lacked in those 
features he made up in hair. Twisting up his mouth as if he 
were preparing to whistle to a deaf dog up a blind alley, this 
superannuated old hen-coop said, — 

" Was you born in old Tennessee } " 

" No, I was born in March," I replied. 

"We are all marchin' on'ard to the tomb," said the old man, 
heaving a sigh and a used-up chew of fine-cut overboard. 

I asked him if it was yellow-fever germs that was the matter 
with him. He was not much of a mine of yellow-fever infor- 
mation, but he wanted to tell me all about the campaign of 
James K. Polk and Clay in 1842. A board of health could 
not stop him when he got under way, and so for twenty-seven 
miles I had to listen to ancient Whig and Democratic history. 
It was interesting, and some of these days I intend to inflict 
ten or fifteen miles of it on an unprotected public. 




COMING UP THE BAYOU. 



SHOOTING ALLIGATORS, 4 1 

Several stockmen behind us were talking about dry seasons. 
One man said that he had seen the Brazos River so low that 
he had crossed it in a pair of low shoes without wetting his 
feet. 

"Mister," said a tall, solemn-looking cow-boy, "that ain't 
nothin'. I came down the Potomac in '6j when we couldn't 
see the banks for the clouds of dust raised by the steamer's 
wheels. Dry season ! You jest bet it was ! " 

At this point the man who had crossed the Brazos looked 
sadly and resignedly from one to the other of the group, and 
invited the crowd to adjourn to the bar, and "wood up." 

Alligators taking their noonday siesta on cypress stumps 
and rotten logs rolled off into the water at the approach of 
the steamboat. A great deal of ammunition was wasted by 
the passengers in attempts to shoot these reptiles. Either on 
account of the strength of the alligator's skin or of the whiskey 
dispensed at the bar, the shooting was barren of results. 

The old Tennessean came to the front again. This time he 
told me of his early life, — his fighting in Mexico, and his losses 
during the late fratricidal struggle. Then he went to sleep. 
He didn't sleep long, but his sleep was loud and hearty. I 
think, by the expression of his mouth, that he was dreaming of 
the time long ago, when he was surrounded by the clash and 
din of battle in Mexico. When the dinner-gong was turned 
loose within two feet of his ear, he was probably at that point 
in his military career where he stepped behind a tree to avoid 
obstructing the progress of a cannon-ball ; for he awoke in a 
wild and demonstrative manner, and assumed a warlike atti- 
tude behind the smoke-stack. When he had rubbed his eyes, 
and realized his situation, he simply remarked, " Ah ! " and 
marched boldly into the saloon amidst the clash and the din 
of the dinner-dishes. After dinner he came out of the saloon, 
picking his solitary pair of teeth with the back of his pocket- 
comb, and was approaching me with the evident intention of 
discharging some more ancient history at me, when I had 
business out on the bow of the boat, where the old man 
could not climb. When I got out there, I fell into a revery. 
The old Tennessean fell into a bucket of tar in his eagerness 



42 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

to follow and corner me ; and, in the language of the immortal 
Bunyan, "I saw him no. more." 

I thought how much like life, travelling on a steamboat is. 
The first thing you know, you find yourself on board in fine 
spirits, early in life. You soon get acquainted with your fel- 
low-travellers ; and, about the time you get to know them, they 
begin to get off at way-landings. At every wharf somebody 
gets off, and strangers get on ; but the boat still keeps going. 
You admire the landscape ; and, when you get thirsty, the bar- 
keeper puts bitters in a glass, and gives you a piece of lemon- 
peel to chew. These are the pleasures of life : they hardly 
counterbalance the misery you may expect from slippery 
decks and old hitching-posts from Tennessee ; but the boat 
keeps moving, all the same. Life and travelling in a steam- 
boat have their pleasures : butr there are rapids and snags and 
hard pulls up stream ; and, if you do not take care, you are apt 
to get a cinder in your eye. Some people, who are born with 
a dozen silver spoons and an electro-plated napkin-ring in their 
mouths, never get a single cinder in their eyes during the 
whole trip from Babydom to Styx Ferry ; while other poor 
devils miss their meals, never wear fine clothes, and are not 
once called Major or Colonel while they are on board. They 
get a nice fresh cinder in their eyes at every turn of life, and 
when they die they get their names spelled wrong in the obitu- 
ary notices that the superintendent of the poor-house furnishes 
with his weekly report. 

In such manner does the journey of life resemble travelling 
on a river-boat, only a great deal more so, and mixed worse 
than this simile. But wl^ether you are born with the family 
plate in your mouth, or doomed to sport a cinder in your eye 
through life, one thing is certain, — the boat moves on. 

At last, when you least expect it, the pilot, with the hour- 
glass and scanty attire, comes aboard, and steers you across 
Styx Ferry into the harbor of 

" Barnes House ! Finest hotel in the city ! Best of accom- 
modations, and moderate charges ! Step right this way, and 
ride up in the omnibus ; won't cost you a cent ! " 

Thus was my revery interrupted by the hotel-runner. The 



HOUSTON IN 1840. 43 

Barnes House, now a hotel celebrated for the toughness of 
its beefsteaks and the flowery and picturesque mendacity of its 
proprietor, was once the house in which the rough pioneers of 
1845 made the laws of the young republic. We were assigned 
to a room, that, in the early days of the republic, formed a part 
of the legislative halls of Texas. 

Houston is the railroad centre of Texas, and, in population 
and wealth, the second city in the State. The railroads bring 
to the city a constantly increasing trade, as the rich and pro- 
ductive lands of the interior are being speedily developed, and 
the extension of the roads is keeping pace with the westward 
progress of the frontier. 

The Abbe Domenick, a French priest, writing of Houston 
in 1840, said, " Houston is a small and muddy village, consist- 
ing of several log-huts, and very much infested with red ants 
and Methodists." 

The city has now from eighteen to twenty thousand inhab- 
itants. The houses in the business part are of brick. Many 
beautiful residences, mostly of wood, are to be seen in a walk 
through its streets and shady avenues. 

Houston is celebrated for the luxuriant beauty of her private 
gardens, and for the fluent muddiness of her streets. The 
main thoroughfares have not been improved by the labor of 
man since their foundations emerged out of the profundity 
of chaos on the day of creation. These arteries of commerce 
and convenience are often spoken of as being "bottomless;" 
and one occasionally hears the gentle drayman or Christian . 
hack-driver, as he ploughs his way through the tough alluvian, 
begin some encouraging remark to his mules by an allusion 
to that other place with a bottomless reputation. 

In Houston, roses are in bloom at Christmas ; and, in fact, 
all the year round the balmy air is filled with the perfume pf a 
thousand fragrant flowers, wafted hither and thither by the 
gentle breezes that come from the Gulf of Mexico. The 
myrtle, the jessamine, and the magnificent magnolia flourish 
here, and diffuse the sweet aroma of their presence with a pro- 
fusion and extravagance that is. absolutely sinful. 

In these warm latitudes, in the cool of the evening, a group 



44 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

of men is always to be found sitting around in chairs under 
the hotel awning. The group usually consists of the hotel 
guests, the landlord, and the married men who come "down 
town to meet a man at the office after supper." Their occupa- 
tion at these times consists in carving their initials in the arms 
of the hotel chairs, and their amusement in competitive lying. 

When we came out from supper, some of the men were bal- 
ancing themselves on the hind-legs of the chairs, their feet 
on the columns of the awning, and their thoughts straying in 
the realms of imagination. 

One jovial-looking liar, with the wreck of a watermelon on 
his knee, and an impediment in his speech, had just finished 
a thrilling narrative of an encounter he once had, down in the 
old Caney bottom, with a hybrid monster, part coyote and part 
bull-dog, where his escape was owing to a special providence, 
assisted by a brindled steer, on whose back he dropped from 
the tree up which he had taken refuge. 

This reminded the landlord of a story: ''When I was keep- 
ing restaurant up at Bryan, before the railroad got there, I was 
trying to raise a pair of young pups, — you know, them little 
Mexican dogs that have got no hair, except a tuft on the top 
of their heads. When they were about six weeks old, their 
mother was run over by a delivery-wagon, and died. I had a 
sow that at the time had a family of young ones about the size 
of the dogs. I wanted to save the pups if possible, as I had 
promised one of them to old man Brown : so I took a fool notion 
that I'd try if the old sow would raise them. Would you be- 
lieve it, gentlemen ! they just took to her as kindly as if she 
had been their own mother. And there I had six young pigs 
and two six-weeks-old pups growing up together in perfect har- 
mony. 

'' In about a week, along came a skipjack of an Englishman, — 
one of them 'you know, you know' sort of dam fools; that 
kind of human outrage that has always 'seen something better 
than that ' in the Old Country, and tells it with an every-thing- 
different-there-you-know air of superiority. He had been blow- 
in' around promiscuous for a day or two, before I thought of 
the pups. He had sort o' aggravated me more than common 



THE ROOTER DOG. 45 

that morning by his talk of the *dawgs and 'orses ' they had 
in England. I posted some of the boys, and told them to be 
handy in the evening. So, just as it might be now, we were 
all sitting around on the gallery, as it was beginning to get 
dark. Says I to the Englishman, 'Major, talking about them 
dogs you mentioned this morning, do you have any rooter 
dogs in your country ?' — 'Any what.-^' says he. 'Rooter dogs,' 
says I : 'we use them for hunting tarantulas, and for harvest- 
ing goober peas. They're a cross between the wild Mexican 
hog and the bulldog. You see, the bite of a tarantula will kill 
a common dog into less'n a minute,' says I; 'whereas snake- 
bites and such like don't fizzle on a hog. Well, the rooter 
being half hog, half dog,' says I, 'is just what we want. If it 
hadn't been for their introduction into the country, the taran- 
tula trade would never have been developed ; and as for gather- 
ing goober peas, — they grow under ground, you know, — the 
rooter dog is the greatest labor-saving animal known. You 
see, the hog part of him roots the goobers out, while the- 
sagacity-of-the-dog part enables him to be taught to pile the 
peas up in little heaps all along the row.' The Englishman 
seemed half way to believe it all ; but he laughed in a knowing 
sort of a way, and he says, says he, * Aw, now ! tell that to the 
marines : you know you cawn't expect a fellow to believe all 
that.' — 'Well,' says I, 'you can believe it or not. These 
gentlemen here all know that it's nothing but the truth I'm 
telling you. Some of them keep rooter dogs themselves ; and 
besides all that, if you'll come back to the yard with me, I'll 
show you two genuwine rooter pups that I am raising right now. 
You will see them with their mother ; and I reckon that'll con- 
vince you.' The Englishman looked around ; but, as he couldn't 
detect a smile anywhere, — for the boys were all as solemn- 
looking as a row of turkey buzzards holding a post-mortem 
examination on a dead horse, — he says, ' I don't mind stwolling 
around to see the blawsted things anyhow.' So we all got up, 
and filed into the stable-yard ; and there, sure enough, lay the 
old sow, and the two pups beside her. I had had the colored 
boy carry off all the young shotes before we came into the 
yard. Great cracky ! you should have seen that Englishman 



46 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



stare, and screw his glass in his eye, when Jim Johnson put 
one of the pups in his hand, that he might, as Jim said, exam- 
ine and see for himself that we had some /r<?-ducts that they 
couldn't raise in England. 

" One of the boys showed him where the hog part was devel- 
oped in the skin, bristles on the back, and curl in the tail, while 
another called his attention to the cropping-out of the dog in 
the head and paws. 

** Before we got through with the exhibition of the peculiar 







ROOTER DOG. 



and valuable points of the pup, the Englishman was trembling 
with eagerness to become possessed of one of them, that he 
might carry it back to the Old Country with him. He offered 
me twenty dollars for it. I wanted thirty. After some argu- 
ment, he authorized me to make a charge on his bill for * One 
rooter dog, twenty-five dollars,' with the understanding that 
I was to take care of it until it could be safely weaned. He 
was as proud of his purchase as a schoolboy with a new gum- 
boil ; and, till late in the night, the boys sat around, relating 



GREEN FROM THE STATES. 47 

interesting reminiscences of tarantula hunts, giving him points 
in natural history, and furnishing valuable statistics relative to 
the goober interests. 

** But, bless your soul ! the fun didn't begin till next morning, 
when the Englishman got to spoutin' about the dawg down to 
Schmidt's drug-store, and some derned fool that wasn't in the 
secret dropped the bung out of the whole business. They 
devilled the poor fellow almost to death. At first he tried to 
make believe that he had twigged the racket from the start, 
and was merely humoring the joke ; but that was too weak. 
Then he swore, and cussed the * demmed country, you know,* 
but finally got into good humor, and set 'em up all round. He 
couldn't stand the endless quizzing, however, and next morning 
hired a team, and lit out for San Antonio." 

[I omit the profanity with which this story was emphasized, 
as it was not intended for publication, merely given as a 
guaranty of good faith.] 

It might be well to state the fact here that Texans are not 
bigoted, and have no prejudice against any nationality. They 
are of many nationalities themselves, and associating with peo- 
ple from all climes gives them enlarged and liberal views. 
Sectional feeling is unknown, except in isolated cases. The 
immigrant or traveller from the Northern States always receives 
a hearty welcome in Texas. There is one thing, however, that 
a Texan loves better, even, than the hanging of a horse-thief ; 
and that is the playing of practical jokes on young men "green 
from the States." These jokes are usually harmless in their 
character, and take the form of extravagant tales regarding 
Texas, its products, Indians, lawlessness, manners and customs 
of its people, accompanied by advice as to how the stranger 
should act under certain described circumstances. If a man is 
a good horseman, and does not affect style either in dress or 
speech, he will be exempt from the infliction of jokes, and will 
be warmly welcomed by the native. In fact, if he can swear a 
little when occasion demands it, if his pants are of jean, and 
if he does not wear that effeminate luxury, socks, his welcome 
will be of the most tropical character. The phrase "green from 
the States " suggests another fact. Texans speak of " going 



48 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

back to the States," "when I lived back in the States," "im- 
ported stock from the States," thereby unconsciously ignoring 
the fact that Texas is one of the United States. 

Not long since, Texas was an independent republic : then 
such expressions were consistent, and had meaning. The old 
citizens have not yet been able to disabuse their minds of the 
idea that Texas is a separate and superior Territory. Strength- 
ening this, is their pride in the vast extent of their State : they 
love to speak of it as "the future great empire ; " and truly, as 
far as area, combined with natural resources, is concerned, the 
world has seldom seen a greater. 

The morning after our arrival in Houston, we walked out to 
see the city (it would be more exact to say that we waded). 

The alleged reason why the streets are not kept in a better 
condition is, that there is no money with which to improve 
them. The city owes $1,800,000. Houston has about 18,000 
inhabitants. On an average, every citizen owes $112. 

The consequences of Houston lacking cash in the city treas- 
ury are visible everywhere. There are so few policemen, that 
some of them walk over more ground in a day than a profes- 
sional pedestrian does. At night they are so far apart that 
they cannot hear each other snore. Now, in Galveston there 
is one policeman to every five or six saloons ; but in Houston 
one policeman has to drink beer in fifteen different places, 
some of them two miles apart. .This is very hard on a police- 
man. If he is found asleep on his beat, he is banged on the 
head, and paid off in depreciated scrip worth fifteen cents on 
the dollar. One policeman has so much to do that he becomes 
exhausted, and cannot carry a drunken man to the lock-up with- 
out having to make three trips of it. For a while the city was 
so poor that it could not pay for a policeman's whole time, and 
he was only hired for a few hours. The revellers would wait 
until his time was up, and then break every city ordinance 
there was. 



''GIVING GALVESTON HELLr 



49 




CHAPTER IV. 



ARE many '* oldest " inhabitants -in 
Houston. They generally open out 
on a stranger by stating, that, when 
they came here in '40, there was only 

. ~ ^ ^ one two-story house in the place. After 

you have listened to the talk of one of 
these pioneer veterans for some time, you begin to feel that the 
creation of the world, the arrangement of the solar system, and 
all subsequent events, including the discovery of America, were 
provisions of an all-wise Providence, arranged with a direct view 
to the advancement of the commercial interests of Houston.^ 
One of the old inhabitants told me all about the New-Orleans 
railroad, which, he said, was expected to leave Galveston high 
and dry on the quicksands of adversity, while Houston would 
keep on flourishing like a green bay horse in a Blue-grass pas- 
ture. I said that I did not see how a road direct to New Orleans 
could help Houston much. 

**Well, no," he said, "that's so: it won't help us much, 
except to the extent that it will give Galveston hell." 

There seems to be an innate animosity towards Galveston ; 
and almost every conversation on the resources and prospects 
ends with some remark that reminds one of the delenda est of 
the old Roman senator. It does not do to express your opinion 
about any particular Houston institution, unless the opinion is 
prepared expressly for the Houston market. For instance : I 
was in a drug-store, getting some medicine, and had a very 
interesting meteorological conversation with the proprietor' 
while he was folding up a little powder that he took out of a 
4 



50 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



bottle labelled " Pluribus Unum, Nox Vomica, Vox Populi," or 
words to that effect. As he was about to hand me the powder, 
I inadvertently remarked, — 

''Your city seems to be pretty well laid out." 
All in the world I meant to say was, that the streets were 
broad and straight ; but, before I could explain myself, all pres- 
ent jumped to their feet. My special friend the druggist 
glared at me, and then bawled out, — 

''Houston is well laid out, is she.-* you leprous outcast from 
Galveston ! I tell you, you vile Galveston emissary, that 
Houston is a lively enough corpse to lay out that little fishing- 
town at the other end of the bayou. You come here swelling 

around, and trying to break 
up our trade, do you 1 So 
Houston is well laid out, is 
she .'* We will see who is 

laid out next!" and he be- 

« 

gan blowing a police-whistle. 
The cashier ran up stairs 
for his shot-gun, while a 
junior member of the firm 
bawled out to the porter, — 
" John, turn the bulldog- 
loose : it's time to feed him." 
These episodes tended to make my stay in that portion of 
the city monotonous. Besides, I was afraid, if they kept on, I 
might become exasperated : so I said, " Don't let me detain 
you from your business," and adjourned sine die. 

It was the same thing everywhere we went. After the doc- 
tor had returned to the hotel to get his shoes scraped, he made 
some remark to the hotel clerk about the dust on the street 
being in rather a juicy condition. 

" Yes," said the clerk, with great complaisance : " we never 
suffer from drouth here, sir ; and we never have to dig sand 
out of our ears, as they have to do in Galveston. Down there 
they had to dig an artesian well twenty-five hundred deep, and 
use it as a sort of anchor to keep their old sand-bar of an 
island from moving off." 




'•:-";:f2*5«^-^ 



TURN THE BULLDOG LOOSE. 



HOUSTON AS A SEAPORT. ^ 51 

I had heard about Houston being a seaport, but I thought it 
was a joke. I knew, however, there was a bar; for one of the 
very first gentlemen I was introduced to took me to see it. It 
was very much like the bars at other seaport towns I had seen. 
There were two inches of water on the Houston bar, in a tum- 
bler ; and I supposed the rest of the seaport was to match. 
The next man that said seaport to me, I took him off to one 
side, told him that I always liked to get the latest marine 
intelligence, hence I wanted to know seriously if there was 
any seaport in town. He said he was willing to make an affi- 
davit that there was a seaport in town. Then I told him I 
wanted him to take me out for a drive on the beach, where I 
could disport in the ocean's wild roar, and see the white-w'nged 
messengers of commerce laden with cloves from where the 
spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle, and other condiments 
from far distant Cathay. The Houston man looked me square 
in the eye, and said, — 

*' It seems to me you have a damned sight of curiosity for a 
stranger. Do you want to go to see it right away 1 " 

''Right off," I replied. 

"Well, le'me see," he mused: "I have got an engagement 
with a man, and it's nine o'clock already. If I don't hurry up, 
I'll miss the street-car," And off he went. 

Still I was dissatisfied. I yearned to see that seaport, even 
if I had to employ a detective to hunt it up. I knew it vv^as in 
Houston concealed somewhere, but I was afraid it would be re- 
moved to a place of safety before I could see it. The next 
gentleman I was introduced to also had something to say about 
that seaport. I asked, — 

'* Do you let strangers see it every day, or only on Sundays, 
or how } Does it keep open all the season } Money is no 
object, if I can only get to see it. I don't suppose it will take 
me very long." 

Said he, "Come with me, and I'll show you the shipping." 

He took me down behind the Hutchins House ; and, in a 
slough at least forty feet wide and three feet deep, I saw the 
fleet. One of the merchantmen had two masts, and carried at 
least three wagon-loads of sand. It did not seem to have much 



52 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

first-class accommodation for passengers who might want to 
cross the Atlantic in any thing like style. The other vessel had 
only one mast, and did not have as many tons' displacement as 
the larger craft. 

"• How did they get there } " I asked. *' By the ship-chan- 
nel .? " 

''By tug." 

"They must have a pretty heavy tug of it getting up here. 
I do not see any iron-clads or ships-of-war. Can you not show 
me the tug of war between here and Galveston } " 

**Oh, yes ! you may joke ; but this is a seaport, all the same, 
according to an Act of the Legislature." 

I had heard that the Legislature made laws, but I never knew 
it made seaports. 

" Why," said my Houston friend, "we cannot help being sea- 
ports. The other day there was a porpoise killed right near the 
city. 

" On purpose t " I asked ; for I was hungry for news. 

" How can we help being a seaport .'' Did you ever hear of a 
porpoise being killed in a town that was not a seaport .'' " 

I took a last look at the fleet, — one of which a man, in the 
mean time, had pulled out on the land to dry, — sighed, and 
went back to the hotel. 

The seaport at Houston, unlike that at Galveston, is kept 
where you can find it. It is not taken in after dark. The peo- 
ple do not seem to be afraid a stranger will take it away with 
him in a bucket when he leaves. The Houston seaport is of a 
very inconvenient size, — not quite narrow enough to jump over, 
and a little too deep to wade through without taking off your 
shoes. When it rains, the seaport rises up twenty or thirty 
feet, and the people living on the beach, as it were, swear their 
immortal souls away on account of their harbor facilities. The 
Houston seaport was so low when I saw it, that there was some 
talk of selling the bridges to buy water to put into it. 

All seaport towns suffer from those marine monsters known 
as mosquitoes. In inland towns you have to raise them in a 
cistern, or worry along without them. Both coast towns, Gal- 
veston and Houston, have fine natural facilities for raising 




A BLOODED GRADE OE MOSQUITOES. 53 

mosquitoes. I have tried both brands of mosquitoes, or rather 
both of them have tried me ; and I cannot tell which is the best 
to avoid associating with. The mosquito, like the sailor, is 
bred on the water ; but he will not return to you after many 
days, because he will never leave you. In Galveston they grow 
to such a large size, that a stranger is apt to mistake them for 
pelicans. A Galvestonian asked me if I had seen any pelicans. 
'' Are they big birds, that have long bills } " I inquired. 
" Yes : that's the kind of an in- 
sect they are." 

"Are they always flying about 
the bars, looking for something to 
eat } " 

''Precisely." 

''Then my room is full of them, 
and they raise a blister every time 
they bite." 

In regard to the merits of the 
rival brands of mosquitoes, it is 
with pain I state that both Galveston and the other maritime 
haven are prone to clothe the naked truth with the flowery 
garments of fiction. In Houston they showed me affidavits 
stating that in Galveston the mosc^uitoes were so large as to be 
included in the cow ordinance, while in Galveston I was told 
that the Houston mosquitoes wore forty-five-inch undershirts. 
There is probably a happy medium between the two. I do not 
know how happy the medium is ; but, if he is not under a mos- 
quito-bar, there is a limit to his bliss. The truth is, that the 
coast-town mosquito rarely exceeds in size the ordinary Texas 
mocking-bird. 

[N.B. — When I left New York, I could not have told a lie to 
save my life ; and here, after three-days' residence in Texas, 
this is what I have come to — and all the time I have been 
associating with the higher classes. They say in Houston that 
I caught the infection in passing through Galveston.] 

Let me advise all persons visiting Texas ports of entry to 
leave their mosquitoes behind : they can get new ones cheaper. 

The hotel clerk informed us that there were Indians in town. 



MOSQUITO. 



54 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

He told us, however, not to be alarmed ; that they were friendly 
Indians, of the Muscogee tribe. They lived in the bottoms of 
the Trinity River, and occasionally came to town, and exchanged 
the fruits of the chase for whiskey and other fruits of civiliza- 
tion. He said they were on good terms with their white 
brothers, and that the city officials not unfrequently enter- 
tained them in one of their public buildings over night, and 
gave them public receptions next morning, at which the mayor 
and members of the legal profession considered it their duty 
to be present. 

Here, thought I, is an opportunity not to be lost. I shall 
interview the noble red man. It will make a thrilling chapter 
in my book, sound romantic — good subject for an illustration 
— full-page woodcut : in the foreground, myself and a warrior 
of the Muscogees sitting on a decayed log, smoking the calu- 
met of peace, and holding a council ; in the background, my 
horse, the Indian's pony, and a slain deer ; the warrior, Howl- 
ing Jews-Harp, a young chief, tall, well-built, and straight as a 
pine, dressed — painted, I should say — in the manner that only 
distinguished chiefs who have killed many a warrior have a 
right to assume, a crest of feathers from an eagle's wing sur- 
rounding his head, moccasons gorgeously embroidered on his 
feet, a buffalo robe hanging with careless grace from his left 
shoulder, his gestures noble, his carriage graceful, and his 
face stamped wdth the majesty and manliness characteristic of 
the untutored child of the forest, his language — well, I knew 
all about that. I had been reading up the Indian lately, and 
felt that I was pretty well informed as to his mode of express- 
ing himself. I had just read the following, referring to the 
Texas Indians, in a late copy of the Galveston '' News : " — 

"Their languages are not poetical, but they use the most simple and 
natural metaphors. No one can have been among them without having 
noticed the intensity of feeling, and power of language in expressing it, 
and without having heard bursts of wild, unpremeditated eloquence. Their 
powers of description are remarkable. So bright and clear is the impression 
produced, that one feels that he has seen what they describe. In this regard, 
they often recall the vivid semi-barbaric pictures of Homer, as they stand 
out in the original Greek poetry, but not the dim photographs of his 
translators." 



HOWLING JEWS-HARP, THE INDIAN CHIEF, 55 

I once read a book by a man named Cooper, who evidently 

knew what he was writing about. He described the Indian 

** Nature's Nobleman" — with a master hand, and with a mi- 
nuteness of detail, that, after perusing his books, left nothing to 
be learned regarding their habits, characteristics, and language. 
With regard to the latter, I felt myself capable of conversing 
with an average Indian in his own language, and of making 
myself understood. It always flatters a foreigner to speak to 
him in his native language. 

I thought I would open the conversation, or interview, after 
this fashion : — 

''Does my brother, the great chief of the Muscogees, ever 
indulge in the spiked ice-water of the pale-faces } " 

He would reply, " The pale-faced hunter is kind : the sachem 
of the Muscogees is thirsty, and he don't care if he should." 

And then, while discussing the national beverage, we would 
continue, — 

" My red brother does not know my name. It is well that I 
should tell him, that he may know to whom he speaks." 

" Wah ! that is useless. I know that my white brother is .a 
great chief. He drinks fire-water like a veteran. Yet, let him 
speak : the ears of the red brother are open." 

'* Howling Jews-Harp sees before him an American citizen, 
an author, a writer, a man who tells the truth. His weapons are 
the pen and the scissors. His tongue is not forked." 

" Good ! Let my brother open his ears : a chief is about to 
speak. Howling Jews-Harp is a renowned warrior. His name 
makes the Comanches tremble like squaws. The Comanches 
are dogs. Many scalps hang in the smoke of his wigwam. 
Howling Jews-Harp is a sachem of his tribe. Three hundred 
warriors will follow him on the war-path. The Muscogees are 
men." 

So, thought I, as this imaginative dialogue in the figurative 
language of the forest-children passed through my mind — so 
we shall converse together ; and the noble red man may, per- 
chance, invite me to his village, to share with him in the 
dangers and the pleasures of the chase. The thought was 
delightful ; but I did not have time to think much, for the 



56 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

doctor was as enthusiastic as I was, and we hurried off to find 
the Indians, and to enjoy some of their "bursts of wild, un- 
premeditated eloquence." 

After passing down Main Street, and turning into the market 
square, we descried the object of our search, — three solitary 
horsemen riding on little ponies. One after the other, they 
slowly filed up the street. Their ponies were the most miser- 
able specimens of the equine race I had ever. seen. . The doc- 
tor said that they would require to be blanketed before they 
would be in a condition to cast a shadow. Venison hams and 
wild turkey hung on either side of their dilapidated saddles. 
The appearance of the Indians was in keeping with that of 
their ponies and equipments. Short of stature, stupid of 
countenance, and ragged in the matter of clothes, they were 
certainly not as impressive as we had anticipated. No war- 
paint, no bows and arrows, no beaded moccasons, no — yes, 
they did have feathers in their hair. Cooper's tales were not 
all lies. This, to me, was the one hopeful oasis in the blank 
desert of disappointment. They looked as if they had slept in 
a feather bed that had sprung a leak during the night. 

These Indians understand English, but speak it as little as 
possible. It is to be supposed that they also understand the 
use of water ; but it never seems to occur to them that it was 
meant to be used, even in whiskey. At any rate, water is a 
blessing that the aborigines have never been known to abuse. 

I approached the chief of the party. I knew he was the 
chief, because he was the drunkest of the three ; and all the 
chiefs I had known were chiefs of fire-departments, and they 
— but let that pass. I said, — 

" Does my red brother desire to replenish his depleted ex- 
chequer by the sale of the products of the chase, — the victims 
of his unerring aim ? " 

With a *' burst of wild, unpremeditated eloquence," he re- 
plied, — 

*' Yes, six-bit one dam heap big turkey." 

The doctor suggested, " Perhaps the chief prefers to speak 
in the language of the pale-faces. — Do you wish to sell the 
game you have got 1 " 



THE DOCTOR DISGUSTED. 



57 



•The untutored replied, in *' the vivid, semi-barbaric style of 
Homer," "Wash yar givin' us? Much big dead-beat. No 
money, no venison. Sabe ? " 

The doctor weakened ; but, resolving to give him one more 
trial, he said, — 

" Do you ever make garments of the skins of the game you 
kill } " 

The Indian looked at the doctor for a moment ; and the far- 




VISIT TO THE MUSCOGEE INDIANS. 



off dawn of a smile illuminated his greasy features, as he re- 
plied, — 

"Well, hardly — hie — ever." 

The doctor was disgusted. He pulled me away ; and, as we 
went back to the hotel, we talked the matter over, and unani- 
mously agreed that the Indian, when tamed by civilization and 
diluted with cheap fire-water, was a miserable fraud. 

Here was another idol broken, another tradition shattered, 
a romance reduced to reality. The noble savage is a fraud, a 
fiction, a myth. He does not exist, he never did exist ; and 
yet we have gone on for years believing in him, and even occa- 
sionally becoming sad and melancholy when we thought that 
the last remnants of a noble race were gradually disappearing 



58 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

from the earth, crowded out by civilization and a paternal 
government. After this, in what shall we put faith ? Can we 
believe any thing? Science and patient investigation are mak- 
ing astonishing revelations. 'The truth of yesterday is the 
error of to-day. The orthodox doctrines of our youth become 
heterodox as we advance in life. The day may soon come 
when the children of this world will have become so wise in 
their generation, that the fumes of a sulphur match will be 
unsuggestive of a state of existence beyond the sunset glow of 
this life, and when men will be asked to believe that there 
never was such a thing as an Havana-filled five-cent cigar. 
Even now scepticism has advanced so far, that we are solemnly 
assured that there 'never were any good old times when politi- 
cians were honest. It has even been hinted that Benjamin 
Franklin was not really the inventor of the cooking-stove bear- 
ing his name. Shall we, in like manner, be asked to give up 
our faith in Jonah, Sindbad the sailor, and other historic men 
and things t We had believed all the stories about the straight 
tongue of the Indian ; we had believed that the poetic and fig- 
urative language of the dusky savage was a reality. May we 
not be asked some day to believe that the blank verse spoken 
by the king and courtiers of Shakspeare's time was but the 
creation of the poet's brain } Who knows what fond delusion 
we may have to give up, what ancient tradition we may have 
to discard } This is an age of analysis, investigation, and 
reality ; and, in the light of experience and research, many 
of the world's beliefs have been examined, and found to 
have been but the hallucinations of a perturbed brain, the off- 
spring of unsubstantial romance, the children of a mendacious 
chronicler. 

The Houstonians are deserving of much credit for the enter- 
prise they have exhibited, not only in building up their own 
city, but in developing the resources of the vast territory 
through which they have built railroads. Houston, situated at 
the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou, and being the point 
of connection for numerous railroads, offers advantages to manu- 
facturers that are not excelled in any other spot in the South ; 
and, no doubt, ere long these advantages will be recognized by 



THE FUTURE OF HOUSTON. 



59 



capitalists, and Houston will be noisy with the rattle of the 
loom and the sound of the trip-hammer. Already Houston's 
capital and enterprise have built a cotton-factory and several 
iron-founderies ; but these are only the acorns from which the 
wide-spreading oak of industries may yet grow. 




COMMERCE AT 



6o 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER V. 




,UL1 THE second morning after our 'ar- 
^ rival in Houston, the doctor and I 
started out in search of horses. 
We wanted to buy two saddle- 
ponies. We had often heard of 
the wonderful endurance of the 
native Texas horse ; we were fa- 
miliar with oft-told tales of the 
long journeys he was capable of 
making, with grass as the only 
item on his bill of fare ; and we had been advised, in view of 
the lengthy trip we purposed making in the saddle, that the 
native pony was preferable to the larger and more showy ani- 
mal "from the States." Learning that there was a caballada 
(herd of horses — Texanized pronunciation, kavey-yard) in a 
corral about three miles from town, we procured a hack, and 
proceeded in the direction indicated by our informant. Now, 
thought I, we shall at last see the wild steed of the prairie, — ■ 
the mustang, with distended nostrils and flowing mane, whose 
pictures grace the pages of frontier literature, where he is de- 
picted in the act of leaping tremendous chasms, breasting 
raging torrents, and invariably carrying his rider safely be- 
yond the reach of the pursuing Indians. To own one of these 
fiery and untamed steeds, and on his back to sweep across the 
boundless prairies of the West, had been the fond ambition of 
my boyhood. Now that I was so near the consummation of 
the hopes of my salad days, thrills of anticipated pleasure 
warmed my blood ; and I eagerly strained my eyes to catch 
the first glimpse of the noble animal, while the doctor softly 
murmured, — 



THE CASTILIAN CABALLO. 6 1 

" When troubled in spirit, when weary of life, 
When I faint 'neath its burdens, and shrink from its strife. 
No counsel I ask, no pity I need; 
But bring me, oh ! bring me a gallant young steed." 

Out beyond the city limits a mile or two, driving over the 
prairie, and we came within sight of a herd of horses. Some 
were inside a corral : others were being driven in by three or 
four wild-looking men on horseback. These men were urging 
the frightened horses with swinging lassos, accompanying 
their gestures with yells unearthly and language sulphureous. 

There were about one hundred horses in all ; but among 







THE CASTILIAN CABALLO. 



them where was the ideal courser of the plains? ** Where," 
cried I, "is the fiery descendant of the noble Castilian caballo.?" 
and echo, if there had been such a thing as an echo around, 
would have experienced considerable difficulty in stating ex- 
actly where. 

Imagine a boy forming his ideas of the wild and hairy sea- 
horse (imported at great expense from the deserts of Africa, 
only living specimen now on exhibition) from the gaudy pic- 
tures on the circus show-bill, and then think of him when 
he has worn himself round-shouldered carrying water to the 
elephant, and having gained admittance to the great moral 
exhibition by the sweat of his brow and the kink in his neck, 
as it were — imagine the feelings of this boy, as he stands 
before the cage looking on the miserable original of the pic- 



62 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

tiire. Imagine an unsophisticated frontiersman, whose notions 
of statesmen have been gathered from the hves of Washington, 
Adams, and Jefferson, journeying from the gateway of the 
setting sun to the national capital, that he may gaze on that 
other great moral show, the combined intellect of a nation 
concentrated in the halls of Congress, and then fancy his feel- 
ings on being brought face to face with the actual menagerie. 
Then, when your mind's eye has become moist gazing on these 
imaginary pictures, you will be in a proper frame of mind to 
sympathize with me ; and you will have some idea of my feel- 
ings, as I stood, not exactly rooted to the spot, but ankle-deep 
in mud, and saw the glittering dream of my youth fade away 
into the realms of stern reality. 

I saw about one hundred poor, lean ponies of all imaginable 
colors, and of a style and build that would suggest the possi- 
bility of offspring resulting from the union of a clothes-horse 
with a night-mare. They were unshod, branded on hips and 
shoulders with extraordinary alphabetical vagaries and idiotic 
monograms, and they were evidently as ignorant of the uses of 
a curry-comb as the average Texas justice of the peace is of 
the usages of the law. None of them was more than fourteen 
hands high. They had been trained to the extent of being 
what is called *' bridle-wise." The owners said this meant, that 
they had been broken to the saddle, and understood the use of 
the bridle. From subsequent experience, I take it that the term 
merely implies the fact that they are wise enough to keep out 
of reach of a bridle whenever it is possible to do so. 

The dream of my boyhood — visions of the '' fleet-limbed 
the beautiful" — had been ruthlessly dispelled ; and I brushed 
away a tear shed in memory of my trustful and credulous faith, 
as I asked the doctor what he was going to do about it. He 
seemed to take a more cheerful view of the situation than I did, 
and replied, with an amount of levity that ill-befitted the try- 
ing hour, " Best we can do, you know ; may as well make the 
best of the circumstances. This Bulgarian atrocity, on the 
white horse here, says he can select two ponies that will carry 
us 'like smoke.' So you just brace up your imagination, and 
create merit in the brutes where it is lacking. As the poet says, — 



THE CLAYBANK PONY. 63 

" ' Get thee glass eyes, 
And, like a scurvy politician, seem 
To see the thing thou dost not.' " 

We climbed on the rails of the corral, and selected two 
specimens of the noblest of domestic animals, — the mildest, 
meekest looking we could see. One of the men in charge 
rode in amid the hurricane of kicking ponies, and lassoed 
those we had pointed out. Tying the home end of the lasso to 
the horn of his saddle, he dragged them, one at a time, outside 
of the enclosure. 

One of the ponies was of a pale dun color, frescoed with 
tufts of last season's hair, and chunks of this season's mud : the 
other was what is known as a ''claybank," the name being 
suggested by the natural color of the animal. A man once 
told me that "it is not necessary that picturesque objects should 
be of great size : it is enough if they are rough and scraggy, 
and have forms characterized by sudden variations." This 
definition occurred to me, as I refreshed my eye with a survey 
of our purchase ; and I realized the fact, that never before had 
it been my privilege to see so much picturesque scenery dis- 
posed of for the paltry sum of fifty dollars in specie. For that 
sum the ponies were to be delivered at a certain stable in town. 
We drove back to our hotel in time for dinner, after which we 
made preparations to leave. 

As we intended, for some days at least, to trust for food to 
such supplies as we might obtain at the plantations and ranches 
along the route, we did not trouble ourselves with cooking- 
utensils. Our saddle-bags contained our small necessities, our 
rifles were strapped to the sides of our saddles, our stake-ropes 
hung on the pommel, and our blankets were rolled up and tied 
behind. 

I looked at the huge Texas saddle, with its high pommel, its 
wealth of leather flap and dangling rawhide thongs, its won- 
derful stirrups, and freight of rifle, saddle-bags, and blanket, — 
all on the back of my little pony, thirteen and a half hands 
high, — and I thought of Falstaff's " ha'-penny worth of bread 
to all that quantity of sack." 

At one o'clock we were all aboard ; and, after a sonorous 



64 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

smile at the landlord's parting lie, we got fairly started on our 
long ride through the wilds and wiles of Texas. 

Our intention was to end the first section of our ride at the 
ancient city of San Antonio, two hundred and fifty miles west 
of Houston ; the route being through the rich sugar and cotton 
lands of the lower Brazos, and over the great stock range of 
the Gaudalupe and the San Marcos. Our course beyond San 
Antonio we left to be decided by circumstances. 

The start promised well. Our ponies stepped out briskly ; and 
soon we were on the open prairie, out of sight of Houston, and 
measuring off real estate at the rate of five miles an hour. For 
about fifteen miles the country is level prairie, with occasional 
motts, or islands of timber, on it. It seems strange, that, being 
so near a city, more of this land is not cultivated. The only 
reason I heard given was, that the soil was " sorry," and not as 
good as in other parts of the State ; yet the very native who 
advanced this as a reason showed me a field on which last year 
he had raised three crops of potatoes, using no manure. In 
January he planted Irish potatoes, and dug them in April. He 
then planted sweet potatoes, which he harvested in time to 
plant Irish potatoes, — some time in September, I think. The 
yield averaged each crop about a hundred and fifty bushels 
to the acre. They call this sorry soil. In the name of all 
that is prolific, may I ask what would satisfy these pampered 
Texan s } If they had been farming down in Egypt in the 
years of plenty, when Joseph was buying futures, and fixing 
for a corner in corn, I have no doubt they would have grum- 
bled at the smallness of the yield, and would have claimed, that 
if it had not been quite so dry, or if they had had a little more 
rain, there might have been over half a crop made. 

Land that would be considered excellent in other and less- 
favored countries is here neglected because there is so much 
better land to be found, probably a short distance off, and be- 
cause that in the State there is such a wealth of this phenom- 
enally productive land. There is no country of the same size 
on earth where there is so small a proportion of poor or waste 
land. It is almost impossible, from figures, to get an accurate 
idea of the immense extent of Texas. 



IMMENSE EXTENT OF TEXAS. 65 

A man once told me that " figures don't lie." He was an 
honest man : at least, he never had been cashier of a savings- 
bank, nor held an office in his life. I believe his statement ; 
but though figures could not lie, even if they so desired, yet 
they do not tell the whole truth when they get mixed up into 
the hundreds of thousands, or, rather, they don't convey the 
full compass of an idea to our finite minds. Comparison is the 
only way by which we can realize quantity. From north to 
south, Texas measures 670 miles ; from east to west, 825 miles. 
Inside her boundaries are 175,000,000 of acres of land, or 275,- 
000 square miles of territory. Texas contains an area as large 
as France and Spain together. Take the States of Ohio, Mary- 
land, and Virginia ; add to them the States of New York, Dela- 
ware, and Pennsylvania ; then, for good measure, throw in the 
whole of the six New-England States, — and the area of all 
these States combined will not equal that of the great State of 
Texas. It extends over ten degrees of latitude, and from the 
sixteenth to the thirtieth degree of longitude west from Wash- 
ington, It has more than two hundred and fifty counties : some 
of the largest — Tom Green or Crockett, for instance — are 
each as large as the State of Massachusetts. 

France has a population of 175 to the square mile: at that 
rate, Texas could support a population of 48,000,000. Great 
Britain has 260 inhabitants to the square mile : at that rate, 
Texas could support 70,000,000 people. 

Within her borders can be found an immense variety of prod- 
ucts. The soil is probably the most fertile and productive in 
the known world. Cotton, corn, sugar-cane, barley, and almost 
all the known cereals, grow side by side with the fruits of the 
tropics and the hardy plants of the more northern regions. 

Texas produces nearly a million bales of cotton annually, — 
about a fifth of the total cotton-crop of the United States, — 
and has land enough suitable for cotton to produce five times 
as much cotton as is now grown in the whole world. About 
fifty thousand square miles is e.stimated as the wheat region. 

Texas, with her vast natural resources, her pasturage for 
millions of cattle and sheep, her immense extent of farming- 
lands, and her countless riches in ores and minerals, is pre- 
5 



66 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

pared to support a population even more dense than' that of 
the most populous country of the world. This is not a mere 
statement, but a matter of calculation and figures. With a 
climate that allows of labor in the field all the year round, 
with skies of more than Italian softness, and with an atmos- 
phere so pure that it is the luxury of a stranger's life to breathe 
it, is it any wonder that the native Texan is usually a large man, 
loud of speech, and inclined to boastfulness .? Considering his 
favorable surroundings, should we blame him if he does occa- 
sionally speak in Italics, and swear in large capitals } 

Texas is divided into three great natural divisions, — first, 
the coast country, almost a thousand miles in length, and run- 
ning inland about a hundred miles ; second, Central Texas, the 
great grain and cotton belt ; third, the vast prairies and table- 
lands stretching out to the western boundary of the State, 
the home of the stockman, the Indian, and the buffalo. Of 
these divisions there are many subdivisions. There is such 
variety in scenery, soil, and products, that a description of any 
one section or division would not, even in general terms, prop- 
erly describe any other division. 

Until a few years ago, the outside world knew very little 
about Texas ; and a great deal of that little was merely in- 
vented history and unsubstantial romance. Texas was form- 
erly regarded as the home of the murderous Indian, and the 
refuge of the equally murderous criminal who had escaped 
from justice in the older States. Before the civil war, when 
a murder was committed in the older States, or when a Sun- 
day-school superintendent appropriated funds from the bank 
of which he was cashier, newspaper accounts of such indiscre- 
tions invariably ended with the laconic announcement, " Gone 
to Texas." 

They tell of a criminal in Eastern Texas, who, thirty years 
ago, was under arrest for horse-steaUng. His lawyer told him 
that his case was a desperate one. *'You will assuredly be 
convicted on the evidence," said he, "and then you .will be 
hung. My advice to you is to try and make your escape." 

" Escape ! Where t " said the horse-thief. *' For Heaven's 
sake, where can I escape to t Sure, Vm in Texas now ! " 



LAND OF DESPERADOES. 6 J 

In those days society in Texas was but little better than it 
is to-day in Chicago or Brooklyn ; and there was good reason 
for the famous remark of Gen. Sheridan, that, if he owned both 
Texas and the residence of the father of lies, he would rent out 
Texas, and li^e in the other place. 

Now that Texas is opened to the world by railroads, igno- 
rance regarding the great changes that have taken place is 
inexcusable ; yet there are intelligent human beings in the 
United States who still look on Texas as the land of despera- 
does and long-horned cattle. 

As an illustration of this, and an evidence that there are depths 
of geographical ignorance in the foreign mind that have never 
yet been fathomed, I quote the following from the London 
(Eng.) '' Spectator " of a late date : — 

"John Wesley Hardin, a noted divine, has perpetrated one of those acts 
so eminently characteristic of American civilization ; and we call attention to 
it as an average example of the mode of administering justice in the United 
States. Texas is one of those wild border-States, located on the Gulf of 
Mexico, and bordering on the Rio Grande. The city of Comanche is a 
flourishing town, whose population is composed largely of desperadoes and 
Comanche Indians from Indiana. About two years ago, Hardin, who was a 
religious fanatic, went inside a saloon, and, without the least provocation, 
shot and killed Sheriff Webber, and then commenced an indiscriminate 
slaughter of men, women, and children. This led to a general engagement 
between the 'whites and the Indians, which was finally put down by a regi- 
ment of Texas cavalry called the Rangers, but not till many lives had been 
sacrificed. During the battle Hardin escaped, and has ever since been a 
terror to that region. The chief judge of the province had to be escorted 
from one county to another under guard of a company of Rangers and a 
battery of GatHngguns, which inspired terror to the savages led by Hardin. 
The daring leader has at length been captured, and sentenced to two-years' 
penal servitude. The people are very superstitious, and look on the des- 
perado as a much-abused individual." 

The American civilization that necessitates the "chief judge 
of the province " being escorted by "a battery of Gatlingguns," 
is something that these people — who can get up bloody riots 
in their own "provinces " on fifteen-minutes' notice — shudder 
to think of. A thousand-pound derrick might hoist the beam 
out of their jaundiced eye. And then the "Comanche Indians 



68 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

from Indiana!" — but the subject is too painful. Let us, 
therefore, resume the narrative of our equestrian progress. 

For three hours after leaving Houston, we had been riding 
over what seemed an interminable prairie, with nothing to 
relieve the eye on either side, except immense herds of cattle 
feeding on the luxuriant prairie-grass. The blank waste and 
immensity of a prairie cannot be described : it must be seen, 
before you can realize that such an extent of flatness exists on 
this terrestrial clod. On either side, away out to the horizon, 
the country is as level as the sea. You are in the centre of a 
vast ocean of dry land. There are no familiar objects in sight. 
You feel — if you are at all imaginative, or have freely used 
your pocket-flask — as if, somehow, you have got off on a new 
planet that is sailing through space on its own account. The 
sky seems to be bluer and clearer, the air purer, and the sun to 
shine more brightly than on the old earth you have been accus- 
tomed to. The eager striving for the possession of dollars and 
cents does not seem to you now to be the chief end of man, 
but, rather, a sad and pitiful exhibition of human weakness and 
inconsistency. Your mind will expand in keeping with the 
vastness of your surroundings, and will be filled with wonder 
and awe, as you gaze on the immensity and beauty of the 
Creator's handiwork, until you are lost in admiration and rap- 
ture, and long for the hour when your day's journey shall end 
at some farm-yard gate, where the aroma of the frying sections 
of a dismembered hog will bring you back from the realms of 
sentiment to the stomachic realities of this life. 

Our ponies moved along with an air of resignation and lan- 
guor that was not at all in keeping with the liveliness they 
exhibited in the morning. This, however, was rather gratify- 
ing than otherwise ; for it dispelled fears and misgivings we had, 
that our lately acquired purchases might have been "bucking- 
ponies." The majority of Texas ponies buck, or pitch as it is 
sometimes termed, whenever circumstances seem to demand 
an exhibition of this facetious freak, or the condition of things 
seems to justify the sportive caprice. They usually exhibit 
this idiosyncrasy of character when first mounted in the morn- 
ing, but are liable to break out in pitching-spells at intervals 



BUCKING PONIES. 69 

all through the day. In fact, some ponies will buck for hours, 
only stopping to get breath for a fresh start. This kind is 
recommended for the use of dyspeptics, and invalids suffering 
from torpidity of liver. A pitching mustang, when working on 
full time, and strictly devoting his attention to business, is the 
most moving sight I ever beheld. His spine seems to be of 
whalebone ; and he appears to possess all the elements of a 
steamboat explosion, a high-pressure pile-driver, and an earth- 
quake, in addition to the enthusiasm of a county convention. 

We were glad to find that ours were not bucking-ponies, and 
we congratulated each other on the fortunate circumstance. 
Of course, as we argued, if there had been any buck in them, 
it would have developed itself at an early stage in the journey. 
Understand, we were not afraid ; for did the doctor not make 
the assertion that he had tDften followed the hounds in Eng- 
land, and only once had he been thrown } and had I not ridden 
ninety miles on a buckboard, that most atrocious of all four- 
wheeled vehicles, and arrived at my destination with no 
worse accident than a broken leg or two } No, we were not 
afraid of being thrown : we did not number that among the 
possibilities. The fact was, ^hat, besides the weather beina; 
warm, we did not need shaking up, and were therefore preju- 
diced against any violent exercise. 

I always liked that fancy of the old saints and sinners we 
read of in the good book, — the giving to each other names sug- 
gestive of some peculiar trait or atrocity of character. Con- 
forming to that old custom, I named my pony ''Deliberation," 
the name seemed so appropriate ; he moved along in such a 
deliberate, solemn way, ^ no pomp and circumstance about 
him ; and he was so gentle and tranquil, nothing seemed to 
flurry him. You could throw the reins on his neck, and strike 
a match on the pommel of the saddle. I say you coiild do this : 
but the after-fate of that match would be of no moment to 
you ; you would be otherwise engaged. I regret to say that 
I tried the experiment. I lighted a match : at least, I think I 
did ; but there was a haziness about the subsequent proceedings 
that prevents accuracy of statement. I distinctly remember 
striking the match. At that moment, however, I was fluently 



70 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



propelled upwards : a tornado caught me, whirled me around 
eleven times. As I came down, a pile-driver drove me once in 
the stomach ; and I came to earth with that sensation (only 
intensified) that a man feels who sits down in what he imagines 
to be a high chair, and which he afterwards thinks was about 
seven feet lower than his estimate. I saw whole milky ways 
of constellations that never before existed. I realized, for the 
first time, the dense solidity of the earth, and made the aston- 
ishing discovery, that, under certain circumstances, our planet, 




BUCKED. 



instead of revolving on its own axis once in every twenty-four 
hours, can rush around at the rate of at least one hundred 
revolutions a minute. There is not in the whole range of lan- 
guage, ancient, modern, or profane, terms sufficiently expressive 
to describe the state of my feelings, the amount of mud on my 
person, or the chaotic condition of my brain. As soon as the 
earth settled down to the usual speed of her diurnal motion, I 
came to the conclusion that it was not always best to judge by 
appearances. I had been hasty in bestowing a distinctive cog- 



BUCKED. 



71 



nomen on my erratic steed. He had no more deliberation in 
him than has a fugitive flea under the searching scrutiny of a 
determined woman. I renamed him. This time I called him 
''Delay," because delay is — but it does not matter. Come to 
think of it since, the reason was weak. If, however, the reader 
should pierce the intricate labyrinth of mental ingenuity that 
constitutes the conundrum, I trust he will be charitable enough 
to consider the circumstances connected with its perpetration. 

There are times that try men's souls. There are seasons in 
every Christian's life when he wishes he was not a church- 
member for just about five minutes, that he might have a 
chance to do justice to the surroundings. Such, to me, was 
the trying moment when I gathered my bruised remains to- 
gether, and, looking around, saw the festive " Delay " quietly 
eating grass, while a little distance off sat the doctor on his 
pony, complacently whistling, *' Earth hath no sorrow that 
Heaven cannot heal." 




72 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER VI. 







^■/^^ 



'^^'r 



'J 7/ ./ . 



THE prairie we rode into 
the wooded country of the 
Brazos bottom, in Fort 
Bend County. The course of the Brazos is about as straight as 
that of the average congressman : it makes a man dizzy to look 
at it on the map. The famous bottoms of this river are about 
six miles in breadth. The soil, which is altogether alluvial, is 
from ten to twenty feet in depth, of a rich chocolate color. I 
heard an Eastern man remark, as he examined it, that Brazos 
bottom soil would be considered good manure in his country. 

The bottom is timbered with oak, pecan, cottonwood, and 
many kinds of smaller trees. The vine bearing the mustang 
grape assumes enormous proportions : some stems attain the 
thickness of a man's leg. These vines climb to the tops of the 
very highest trees : they then recoil, and are seen hanging in 
magnificent festoons, as if so arranged by the hand of art. 

Large quantities of grapes, wild and uncultivated, grow in 
these bottoms. Very few of them are gathered ; although it is 
said there can be made from them an excellent wine, equal to 
good claret. One man could gather a wagon-load of them in a 
day. It is astonishing that some one with a knowledge of wine- 
making does not invest in this enterprise, the profit of which, 
no doubt, would be great. 

I have heard of a man coming to Texas expecting to find 
money growing on the trees, and I am told that he went away 
sorrowful because the crop did not equal his expectations. I 



MONEY GROWING ON TREES. 



.73 



think he must have overlooked this part of Texas : for here, 
money growing on trees is almost a literal fact ; at least, the 
equivalent of money is to be seen weighing down the branches 
on every side. Energy and a mule-team is all the capital a 
man needs to enable him to realize from these natural sources, 
and not only to make a living, but to accumulate wealth. 

Pecans, an article of commerce worth a dollar and a half a 
bushel, can be gathered from the trees along the banks in 
almost unlimited quantities ; and on the Brazos, and all through 
Eastern Texas, the supply of moss — free to all who wish to 
gather it — is immense. It is valuable as a substitute for hair 
in the manufacture of mattresses, cushions, etc. Large quan- 
tities of it are shipped to New Orleans and other points. 
Some people have a prejudice against it. They say its pres- 
ence is indicative of chills and other sickness. I once heard a 
learned native use strong terms in speaking of it. He called it 
tillandsia usneoides : but probably he meant nothing unkind by 
his remark; for he was that sort of man who calls a potato "an 
esculent farinaceous tuber of the solamini tiiberosiiui family," 
and expresses his thoughts in polysyllabic and sonorous periods, 
but who, somehow or other, 

cannot sustain the strain, and - - - 

drops from the heights of the 
sublime to the plains of the 
ridiculous with painful celer- 
ity. 

I met him once on a wet 
day, toiling on foot up a rocky 
road in Western Texas. In 
the course of our conversa- 
tion I happened to remark 

that there seemed to be a useless profusion of good building- 
material in that out-of-the-way place. 

Said he, " My dear young man, in these scenes of grandeur 
and sublimity, which forcibly impress the attentive observer of 
nature, there is nothing without its use. We can find sermons 
written upon even this apparently useless calcareous formation. 
I tell you what it is, sir, had not the Great Architect of the 







EXPLAINING ROCKS. 



74 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

universe, in his mighty wisdom, when in the gray dawn of 
creation he brought order out of chaos — had he not formed 
these stones and placed them here, I'm gosh durned if you and 
I, sir, wouldn't be up to the knees in mud right now." 

There is a story told regarding a speech once maae by this 
reservoir of flatulent verbosity. I have heard the story, with 
variations, often repeated, and almost as often have I heard the 
speech credited to some other person. It may therefore be 
old to the reader, but there is a breezy freshness about it that 
justifies me in repeating it. It runs somewhat after this fash- 
ion : while speaking at an open-air meeting, he was interrupted 
by a man in the crowd who shouted, " Louder ! " The speaker 
raised his voice. In less than a minute the same man again 
called, " Louder ! " Again the speaker raised his voice, until 
its volume reached away out beyond the edge of the crowd. 
When the man for the third time called " Louder ! " the orator 
paused for a second, and then continued, " Fellow-citizens, the 
period will at last arrive when the vast machinery of this uni- 
verse must stop, and all its wheels be motionless ; when the 
spheres shall cease to roll, and all the defined periods of time 
be lost in eternity. In that awful hour, when the mighty 
Gabriel shall descend from the battlements of heaven, and, 
placing one foot on the sea and one on the land, shall force a 
blast from his trumpet that shall reverberate throughout the 
remotest corners of the universe, some dog-goned fool will holler 
* L oiider ! L ouder .^ ' " 

Cotton, corn, and sugar-cane are the principal crops raised 
on the lower Brazos. Before the civil war, or, as a Texan 
would say, " 'fore the break-up," this country, for many miles 
on each side of the river, was divided into large plantations, 
owned by wealthy slave-holders. Some planters owned as 
many as three hundred slaves. The planters lived in baronial 
style, — autocrats of estates more extensive than many of the 
dukedoms of Europe, and with annual revenues larger than 
those of the majority of the princes of the Old World. The 
negro quarters on these great plantations were small towns, 
populous with the happiest of dusky humanity, and noisy with 
the hilarity inherent in the childish Ethiopian. 



THE OLD PLANTATION BEFORE THE WAR. 75 

Abundance of hog, hominy, hoecakes, and molasses ; a liberal 
license in the matter of break-downs and camp-meetings, — this, 
with Sunday frolics, went to make the ''poor, down-trodden 
African " the happiest of mortals in the "ole timey days 'fore 
'mancipation." If they did get whipped when they did what 
was wrong, do we, in these days of universal freedom, not whip 
certain of our criminals ? If they were for certain crimes 




CAMP-MEETING EXHORTER. 



bound with chains, as we used to see the " man and a brother " 
depicted on the titlepage of abolition tracts, do the officers of 
the best government the world ever saw not bind with chains 
those who break the laws ? If the black slave was once in a 
while compelled to do laborious tasks, and to work from sun- 
rise until after sunset, are there not white freemen in these 
United States to-day who are compelled to toil at equally hard 
labor, the payment of which will not purchase bread and meat 



76 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

enough to keep body and soul together ? I ask myself these 
questions as we ride through what was once a plantation rich 
in waving corn, and white with bursting cotton-bolls, now a 
sad, bleak wilderness of weeds ; the once clean and comfortable 
quarters, now wretched hovels, the home of filth and pestilence ; 
the once palatial residence of the planter, now untenanted, ex- 
cept by the bat and the owl. As I look on this great change, 
I think of the negro slave (whose ancestors, in all the centuries 
of their existence as a people, had never developed enough 
intelligence to build a bridge) being clothed and fed, housed 
and rfursed in sickness, by their masters in the days of slavery. 
And then I look around, and I see the '* colored gentleman " of 
to-day indolent and shiftless, filthy and ragged, lying asleep in 
the sun. I enter his miserable cabin, and I see his wife as 
dirty and ragged as he is. I find his children sick, and on the 
way to an early grave for lack of intelligent care and medical 
aid. As I listen to the plaintive song of the mother, memories 
of the jubilant choruses that used to resound through the old 
plantation crowd upon me. Visions of the fat old mammy — 
kind to the children, and loyal to "ole massa and missus" — and 
of the superannuated uncie, with his dignity of bearing and 
battered banjo, arise before me ; and I think what an immense 
amount of sympathy and gush regarding the "fettered bonds- 
man " has been wasted. Understand, I am no upholder of the 
institution of slavery. As an evil under the sun, J abhor it ; 
as a surviving evidence of barbarism, I am glad it has been 
numbered with the things that were : but, when I look at the 
present and the past without prejudice, I can see that the col- 
ored man of to-day, with his freedom and all the rights of citi- 
zenship, stands more in need of sympathy than ever did the 
slave of ante-bellum days. It may be accepted as a fact, that 
exemption from labor is the only idea the average plantation 
negro has of liberty. ^ 

Meeting an aged darkey near Richmond, in Fort Bend 
County, we inquired of him the distance to town. 

"Well, boss, it's right smart o' distance thar." 

" But how many miles is it } " 

" Well, sah, I spec it's 'bout four miles, sah, mo* or less." 




WHITE FOLKS AIN'T AS GORGEOUS AS THEY USED TO BE. 



THE NEGRO AS A SLAVE. 



77 



" Have you lived in these bottoms long, uncle ? " 

*' Bress yo' heart, chile, I's a ole pie'neer, I is. I's been a 
slave heah 'fo' de wah. I b'longed to Judge Waters, an' I's 
done rented a place on de ole plantation since." 

"■ And how do you find times now, compared to what they 
were before emancipation } " 

" Times is mighty scrimpid now, sah, for a fac'. It 'quires 
a darkey .to be mighty peart in dese yere times fur to make a 



yffT! 



'"''■'" i^t^i! I. ^>^ii ;;>^ 




THE NEGRO AS A SLAVE. 



livin' ; an' de white folks, neither, ain't as gorjus as dey used to 
be. De change is wussur on dem dan on de cullud man." 

" How is that, uncle t " 

*' Yo' see, sah, if yer had been 'customed to ride in yo' ker- 
ridge, an' hev niggers to wait on yo', yo'd find it kinder sort o* 
discomposin' to do yer ridin' on a ole mule, an' hoe yo' own 
row in a corner of a big cotton-field, whar yo' used to boss fifty 
niggers. Eben hogs is a objec' wid white folks now ; an' dey 
makes a debbil ob a fus if one ob der chickens strays inter a 
nigger's lot, an' gits killed premiskus-like, by mistake as it wur. 



78 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Yes, boss, times is changed : times is hard, sah, siire's yo' 
born." 

"Your talk would lead one to suppose that slavery was 
better* than freedom. You don't want the old times back 
again, do you V 

" Oh, no, young massa ! I knows it's better fur de young 
folks dat dey am free ; but as fur me, I'd rather, if de good 
Lord willed it, be gittin' my vittuls in ole massa's kitchen dan 
be skirmishin' roun* for grub like we has to do now." 

" But don't you think, uncle, that the times will improve, 
and that the rising generation of colored people will improve 
with the times, and " — 

"'Scuse de interruption, sah ; but de risin' generation ob de 
cullud people is a gwine to de debbil as fas' as dey can, yes, 
sah, for a fac'. I ain't no flossifer ; but I's wrastled wid de 
subjec', and dis yere ole darkey knows what he am a talkin' 
'bout, sure's yo' a foot high. De ole timey niggers ain't got 
much sense, but dey is hones', an' most ob dem works ; but de 
young folks is de no accountest trash \ Sakes alive, sah ! dey 
cares for nuffin but polertics and whiskey. De boys don't 
work, 'ceptin' 'nuff to git money fur whiskey ; an' I say dere 
hain't no God's freedom in de freedom dat lets a man buy 
whiskey wid de money dat should go fur de s'port ob his 
wife an' chil'un. Yo' hear me shout." 

The old man stood in the dusty road, leaning on a crooked 
bois d'arc stick, his hat in his hand, and his bald head encircled 
by a fringe of white wool shining in the sunlight. If he was 
not a "flossifer," he was evidently a preacher; for his voice, as 
he progressed, grew louder, and had the true ring of the camp- 
meeting exhorter. The subject was one with w^hich he had evi- 
dently "wrastled," and over which he had no doubt mourned. 
He was prepared to enlarge on the theme, and improve the 
occasion ; but, as our time was limited, we said good-by. Look- 
ing back as we jogged along, we saw the old man limping up 
the road, and heard him muttering in thunder tones something 
about the' "no accountness ob things ginerally." 

The sun was down when we arrived in Richmond, — a town 
of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, built on the bank of the 



LOS BRAZOS DE BIOS. 79 

Brazos River. The Spaniards called this river " Los Brazos de 
Dios " ("the arms of God"). What could be more appropriate 
than this name ? The strength of a god is in its mighty current, 
as the turbid waters in the rainy season rush and hurry onward 
to the sea. The soil left by the receding waters in past ages 
has made the " Brazos bottom " a synonyme of fertility. It is 
an inexhaustible soil, the richest, perhaps, in the world. 

The Brazos affords a water-way for light,-dr aught crafts for 
a distance of fifty miles from its mouth. As the distributer 
of these blessings, it may well be. called ''the arms of God." 

Those old Spanish pioneers used to coax the Indians of 
Texas into the folds of Christianity under the soothing influ- 
ences of the thumb-screw and other ancient Christian ordi- 
nances. They were also in the habit of patronizing bull disputes 
on Sunday. Taking them altogether, they were a depraved set ; 
but they did have some sense of the eternal fitness of appro- 
priate nomenclature when it came to naming rivers and moun- 
tains. Had a civilized and enlightened American been the 
discoverer of the Brazos de Dios, he would doubtless have 
named it after his wife's aunt, or in honor of some distin- 
guished alderman in his native town. 

It- was on the banks of this river, that, in 1821, Stephen 
F. Austin, a Virginian, founded the first American colony in 
Texas. The colony consisted of three hundred families. They 
made their homes in what was then an uninhabited and 
unknown country. Under many disadvantages, they flourished, 
and grew in numbers and wealth. The story of the early 
struggles of this colony, the "Old Three Hundred," as in after 
years they loved to be called, would make a volume of extraor- 
dinary interest, abounding in tales of heroism, self-sacrifice, 
and noble deeds. 

In Fort Bend County, before the war (i860), there were 3,532 
negro slaves, valued at ^3,139,856. Then taxes, including 
State, county, and poll tax, did not exceed twenty cents on the 
hundred dollars ; then Brazos bottom-land was worth fifty to 
eighty dollars an acre, and cotton was worth twenty cents a 
pound : now taxes amount to seventy-five cents per hundred 
dollars ; bottom-land is worth only five to ten dollars an acre ; 



8o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

cotton sells at eight cents per pound ; and the $3,139,856 worth 
of negroes run the county government, and revel in the luxury 
of unlimited politics. 

In 1878 the population of the county was estimated at ten 
thousand, of which only two thousand were white. All the 
county officers, except two, were negroes. Is it any wonder, as 
the old negro said, ''de white folks ain't as gorjus as dey used 
to be".? 

We crossed the Brazos at Richmond in a ferryboat. The 
Houston and San Antonio Railway crosses here on a very fine 
iron bridge. Judge Schultz was a fellow-passenger with us on 
the ferry. The craft proceeded slowly, on account of the low 
state of the river, and gave the judge the opportunity to dis- 
gorge the following : — 

** You see that railroad bridge t Well, sir, that wasn't there 
when I crossed that river on the cars ten years ago. The trains 
crossed on a bridge of boats, — the only railroad bridge of the 
kind in the world, sir. The rails were laid only a few feet 
above the Water. The banks are very high ; and the grade 
down to the water was one in three, and the same up the other 
side. The engine only carried over one car at a time, switched 
that one off, and came back for another. She would take a car 
and back out on the track a few hundred yards, so as to get a 
good start, and then, donner and blitzen ! how she would go 
down on one side with a zipp and a bang, and then up the other 
with a snort and a howl ! Sometimes she wouldn't hold the 
rails going up ; then she would fall back on the pontoon bridge, 
and lie there till they brought another engine, and towed her up 
with a rope." 

The judge, probably noticing an incredulous glare in my eye, 
continued, — 

" Yes, sir, it is hard to believe, if you never saw it done ; but, 
sir, there is the very bluff right before you to prove the truth 
of every word I have spoken." 

I confess, that, before the judge called my attention to the 
bluff, I was inclined to be a Httle incredulous : at least, I 
thought it possible that perhaps the judge exaggerated some- 
what ; I was willing to accept his tale with the usual discount. 



AN UNADULTERATED LIE. 



8i 



As soon, however, as I looked at the bluff, I regretted that I 
had harbored a doubt as to the judge's veracity : for there in 
the moonlight, towering forty feet above us, was the identical 
bluff ; and, as I examined it, I became satisfied, that, after all, 
the judge's story was the — most unadulterated lie I had ever 
heard. 








2>2 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER VII. 




THE counties of Fort Bend, 
Wharton, Colorado, and Bra- 
zoria, there is a great deal of 
the finest sugar-lands in the 
world. Before the war, there 
were vast sugar - plantations 
here. Sugar-cane is still culti- 
vated, although not to such an 
extent as formerly, owing to 
the difficulty of procuring plan- 
tation hands suitable for the 
work. It is a very profitable crop. 

The counties of Fort Bend, Brazoria, Wharton, Matagorda, 
and the lower portions of Austin and Colorado, are the best 
part of the world for the successful and economical production 
of sugar-cane. Mr. Freeman, a sugar-planter, told me that he 
was prepared to prove that the entire expense of running a 
sugar-plantation in Fort Bend County is less than the annual 
expense of ditching and levee tax on similar acreage in the 
sugar district of Louisiana. 

Sorghum is a variety of sugar-cane, from which an inferior 
kind of sirup is made. Large quantities of it are cultivated in 
the rich bottoms of the Brazos and Colorado Rivers. Mr. M. 
Gardner, in an article on the cultivation of sorghum, published 
in the Galveston **News," says, ** I have been raising and mak- 
ing sirup out of sorghum for the past twenty years. My aver- 
age yield of sirup has been from eighty to a hundred and thirty 



" YOU MUST FURNISH YOUR OWN BARRELS^ 83 

gallons per acre. When cotton was bringing fifteen cents and 
upwards, I sold sirup at from seventy-five cents to one dollar 
per gallon. It costs much less to cultivate cane than it does to 
cultivate cotton." 

The' doctor's pony had been acting in a very unsatisfactory 
manner, and looked as if he were suffering from lack of rest. 
The doctor wanted to sell him, and buy a larger horse. Our 
landlord told him that a sugar-planter who lived on the edge 
of town wanted j List such a pony, and would give a good price 
for him if he suited. We rode over to see the sugar-planter, 
and found him in the field. The doctor exhibited the pony, and 
made truth howl, as he told of the good qualities of his steed. 
He (the pony) was so gentle that a child could give him oats, so 
fast that only a long-winded man could ride him, and he was in- 
capable of fatigue, and was possessed of extraordinary staying- 
powers (he would stay all day at a haystack without showing 
the least fatigue). The planter took the saddle off the pony, and 
looked at his back to see if the customary Sore was there. Being 
evidently satisfied, he offered the doctor twenty dollars for him. 

" He is a gift from my poor old uncle," said the doctor ; 
*' and, knowing his worth as I do, I would not sell him at any 
price but that I am compelled to take the train to-morrow, that 
I may get home in time for my uncle's funeral. You may have 
him, however, for forty dollars." 

"More than he is worth," said the planter; "but I like the 
looks of the plug ; and, if you'll throw in the saddle and the 
bridle, I'll give you forty." 

" You can have him on those terms," said the doctor. 

"All right : just lead him around, and hitch him at the gate 
— but recollect you must furnish your own barrels." 

" Barrels ! Why, what have I got to do with barrels .'* " 

" You didn't expect to get forty dollars for that pony without 
furnishing the barrels, did you .^ " 

" What in Heaven's name do you want barrels furnished 
for } " replied the doctor. 

" Well, now, that beats any thing ! Don't you know that 
sorghum molasses is legal tender here } If you want to trade, 
that's the kind cf currency you'll have to take." 



84 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"■ Well, I'll be — Get up ! " said the doctor ; and, putting 
spurs to his forty dollars' worth of molasses, he galloped out of 
the field, and I followed. 

We left Richmond at sunrise, after a hasty breakfast of 
bacon, corn-bread, and coffee. In these warm latitudes it is 
too hot to travel in the middle of the day. Travellers usually 
start at sunrise, and ride until about eleven o'clock ; then, 
selecting a shady place on the bank of a creek, or near a water- 
hole, where water for the horses and for the making of coffee 
can be found, they "noon it." '' Nooning it" means stretching 
a rope out on the prairie, with a tree or a peg at one end, and a 
horse or a mule at the other ; it means gathering an armful of 
wood and buffalo chips, and using up a lot of matches and a 
choice assortment of patience and profane language in making 
a fire ; it means a dinner consisting of coffee, without sugar, in 
a tin cup, and corn-bread baked in a dirty skillet, with a cigar- 
ette for dessert ; it means a long nap after dinner, while the 
industrious ant explores the deepest recesses of one's under- 
clothing, and the artesian tick digs his grave in one's skin ; 
and, finally, it means gathering together the scant culinary 
utensils, hitching up, and starting off at three o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

At Richmond we had provided ourselves with all the neces- 
sary implements and accessories for what is called '' a camping- 
out trip ; " that is, a journey on which the traveller avoids all 
human habitations, cooks his meals in the woods or on the 
plains, and sleeps on whatever spot of mother-earth nightfall 
finds him, — a journey on which the traveller is his own hostler, 
cook, and hairdresser, and has to depend on his own resources 
for almost every thing, from the killing of game for food to the 
washing of a shirt for comfort. Our camping-equipment con- 
sisted of a skillet, a coffee-pot, a peck of cornmeal, and a piece 
of fat bacon to wipe the inside of the skillet with as a prelim- 
inary to the making of corn-bread, a small sack of ground 
coffee, and two tin cups. It was when we were considering 
ways and means for carrying this modest outfit, that we discov- 
ered what the many dangling rawhide and buckskin thongs 
hanging froni different parts of our saddles were for. To these 



MODE OF TRAVELLING. 85 

we attached the several articles to be carried, makinof a fair 
distrilmtion. The skillet falling to the Doctor's share, and 
having: a long handle, distressed him greatly for a day or two 
by dar gling against his legs, until he conceived the novel plan 
of attaching it to the crupper, and hanging it over the stern like 
a rudder. This proved to be a very wise arrangement. His 
horse, not being especially brilliant as to speed, and being nat- 
urally very deliberate in his movements, was encouraged, by the 
banging of the rudder on his legs, to move sometimes with quite 
a creditable degree of velocity. 

We travelled at a speed of about four miles an hour, winding 
our way through woods of oak and elm, where, except on the 
roads, the underbrush of mustang and blackberry vines was so 
dense that nothing but a snake under indictment for chicken- 
stealing would think of attempting to pass through. 

Out of these dark avenues, where the interlaced branches of 
the trees from either side, with their ragged drapery of Spanish 
moss, modified the burning glare of the noonday sun, and 
caused a mellow twilight to pervade these forest depths, we 
passed into the scorching sunlight and over the flat prairie, our 
horses wading knee-deep in the coarse prairie grass. 

There are many points of resemblance between these prairies 
and the ocean. You will ride and ride and ride, and never 
seem to be getting nearer to any thing. At last you see a 
chimney away out on the horizon ; then a roof appears, and, 
like the sails of a- ship, seems to grow larger as you approach 
it ; "hen the hull — I mean the walls of the house — appears. 

Riding over the plains is usually a very monotonous pleasure. 
Of course, there are exceptions. One of these exceptional 
:ases is very fresh in my memory. It was on the second day 
out from Houston, and we were on the open prairie, having 
travelled several hours with the hot rays of the sun shining 
upon us. We became very thirsty. Stopping at a water-hole, 
I dismounted, and handed the doctor a cup of water. In return- 
ing the cup, he let it fall on the ground, startling, my pony, and 
causing him to run about fifty yards. As he stopped and began 
to graze, I paid no attention to the matter, expecting, after 
attending to the demands of my thirsty throat, to walk up to 



86 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

him, and mount. He let me walk to within five paces of his 
head. He had no objection to my walk. The fact is, and I 
regret to bear witness to it, he seemed rather to enjoy seeing 
me walk. Just as I was about to reach out to catch the bridle, 
be walked off. Then I began to run : so did he. He evidently 
enjoyed this acceleration of speed on my part, even more than 
he had previously enjoyed my walking-gait. He ran a short 
distance with his head down, apparently chuckling to himself at 
my discomfiture ; then, throwing his heels up in the air, he 
cantered around me in a circle, neighing in a derisive manner. 
When I stopped, he would stop, and wait until I would almost 
catch up with him. He was always on the alert, however, and 
stood with his tail at full cock, ready to go off at the slightest 
increase of speed in my movements. What added to the interest 
of the entertainment was, that, when the vile mustang started, 
the coffee-pot, and other loose articles of virttc attached to the 
saddle, kept flopping around ; increasing his hilarity, and causing 
him to perform gratuitous antics that no one would have ever 
thought the brute capable of performing. The result of this 
was, that, from the moment he started to run, he began shedding 
my portable property, — loose articles first, then the contents 
of my saddle-bags, one article at a time, — leaving a train of tin- 
ware and notions to mark his erratic course. This necessitated 
following in his tracks, that I might pick up my scattered 
belongings, — here a tooth-brush; there a bar of soap; over 
yonder, a towel hanging on a withered cactus ; and the coffee- 
pot, with the handle broken and the lid gone, jammed among 
the thorns ; farther on, my note-book in a puddle of water, and 
the photograph of somebody with golden hair smiling at me 
out of a bunch of violet-colored flowers. 

It was a woful sight, but my pony was not the sort of animal 
that stops at the sound of woe. There was something that 
added to my bitterness of spirit ; something that persons of 
sedentary habits, who have lately taken horseback exercise, can 
understand and appreciate. The doctor rode after my pony, 
and tried to catch him ; but this was a failure on account of lack 
of speed on the part of the pony the doctor rode. The doc- 
tor's pony did his best, however, and evinced that ignoble dis- 



UNHORSED ON THE PRAIRIE. 



87 



position common to horses — and not unknown among men — 
to drag down and bring their fellows into the bonds of the 
same captivity they themselves are under. 

After two hours spent in fruitless endeavor to catch my pony, 
and after trying all manner of deceitful devices to entrap him, 
— such as walking up toward him with a handful of choice grass, 
and offering it to him in the most respectful manner and sweetest 



<^ 



^^\ 




tone of voice, and in holding a hat toward him in such a man- 
ner as to suggest that it contained about two quarts of shelled 
corn, — after all this had failed, he caught himself by entangling 
a rope, that hung loose from his neck, in the branches of a low 
mesquite. 

I mounted the equine desperado, and said never a word. 
Some men would have had revenge by punishing the animal. 
The fact was, I could have stood at that moment an unmoved 



88 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

spectator, and let my horse property be skinned alive, and I 
could have taken pleasure in peppering and salting the remains, 
after the hide had been removed. Indeed, in my then state of 
mind, no torture would have seemed more than just ; but I sup- 
pressed my feelings, for the doctor was making a ridiculous 
spectacle of himself, laughing at what he supposed to be the 
best circus-performance he had ever witnessed. I made some 
idiotic remark regarding a clown, but declined to speak further 
until we arrived at a place where we decided to camp for the 
night. 

The place we selected was a narrow valley, or canyon, 
through which our road ran. We staked our horses where 
they ha^ an abundance of excellent grass. The doctor lighted 
a fire, I made some bread and coffee, and we had supper. 
After supper, pipes. There are few more pleasant moments in 
a man's life than those that come after a long and fatiguing 
day's ride, and a hearty supper, when he spreads out his blanket 
under a tree, lights his pipe, and lies down on his back with 
his head on his saddle, and all care and trouble and hotel clerks 
hundreds of miles away. To the man who loves a brier-root 
pipe, these are moments of supreme enjoyment. He gazes 
up at the dark vault above, with its myriads of glittering 
worlds circling around in harmonious evolutions to the music 
of the spheres, and he wonders if any of these far-away planets 
are inhabited by — fleas. The sandy soil of the postoak coun- 
try abounds in fleas. Two travellers are said to have disputed, 
on one occasion, as to whether it was " a handful of sand with 
some fleas in it," or "a handful of fleas with some sand in it." 

The camp-fire burned low, and I fell asleep. I awoke sud- 
denly. The first thing I realized, I was standing on my feet, 
in my hand the skillet, which, in the confusion of the moment, 
I had caught up as the most available weapon of defence. As 
I stood bewildered in the darkness, the echo of the blood- 
curdling sound that awoke me reverberated through the canyon, 
thrown from bluff to bluff, and dying away in a diabolical 
cadence far up in the northern end of the valley. 

I discovered the doctor intrenched in a defensive attitude 
behind a tree, the flickering light of the camp-fire showing 



A CHORUS OF DEMONS. ' 89 

a stern purpose in his eye, and on his usually placid counte- 
nance a fixed determination to die in his tracks rather than 
submit to — whatever it was. 

Before I had time to address him, the sound again came up 
out of the thick darkness, and not only from one direction, but 
it seemed to proceed from a chorus of demons placed in a 
circle around our camp. It was the most mournful, sad, and 
unearthly sound I had ever heard, — a combination of sounds, 
consisting of a howl of disappointment, a whine of sadness, 
and a groan of pent-up despair, with a few bars from an Irish 
cato?ie thrown in to give tone to the effort. I had heard the 
cry of a distressed hog caught in a fence, I once had a room- 
mate who was learning to play the flute, I had patiently sat 
through an Italian opera inflicted by Signor Blatantizo and his 
assistant fiends, and I have had nocturnal experience with 
a baby suffering from colic ; but of all the dreadful and dreary 
sounds that I had ever heard, emanating from objects animate 
or inanimate, this was the most dreary and dreadful. The doc- 
tor hoarsely whispered, 'Indians ! " Imagine the situation : "two 
solitary horsemen " in a wild canyon, far from a human habita- 
tion ; the night '* dark as was chaos ere the infant sun was 
rolled together, or had tried his beams athwart the gloom pro- 
found ; " and a mysterious danger threatening. Here we were, 
hemmed in on every side, and surrounded by an unknown and 
unseen foe. There was no chance of escape : we had no cave 
to hide in, not even a clean shirt to die in. 

The situation was apalling to the doctor. To me, after the 
conclusion of the second overture, it was only suggestive 
of fun at the doctor's expense ; for I had recognized the howl of 
the coyote, and knew that the fearful sound we had heard was 
only the impatient chorus of a gang of prairie wolves, waiting 
our departure, that they might forage around the debris of our 
supper. 

The doctor thought we were surrounded by Comanches ; and 
for two hours I allowed him the luxury of thinking that he was 
an absorbing object of interest to about fifty howling savages. 
Two hours of enjoyment to me, and of mortal terror to the 
doctor, I owed him for his laugh at me in the morning. He 



90 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



received payment at the rate of two hundred cents on the dol- 
lar. He performed some of the most extraordinary manoeuvres 
with a view to deceive the enemy, and protect himself from 
their bullets. The fact that it was so dark you could not see 
six feet ahead — could not even see an opportunity — made 
the doctor's movements all the more absurd. First, he would 
stand edgewise against what he supposed to be the safe side of 
a tree. The next howl, coming from a new direction, would 
cause him to bear around to what had previously been the 
danger side. Then he would imagine that the tree was not 

large enough to af- 
ford his body suf- 
ficient protection. 
He kept dodging 
around from tree 
to tree, sometimes 
leaving his coat 
hanging on a stick 
beside one tree, to 
attract the aim of 
the savage, while 
he skirmished un- 
der shelter of an- 
other of larger di- 
ameter. I could 
hear the cold per- 
spiration drop from 
his brow in icicles 
at his feet. I stood this as long as I could. I suppressed my 
laughter until I had accumulated so much inside me that I was 
a perfect reservoir of mirth, and was in danger of becoming 
cracked in several places, if I had not turned loose some of it. 
It is not all out of me yet. 

I approached the doctor by forced marches, and, with great 
caution, divulged to him the truth as to the situation. I broke 
it to him gently at first, fearing he might not appreciate the 
joke. I really considered it a joke on the doctor. He said not 
a word ; but he looked a whole Webster's unabridged, includ- 




CHORUS OF DEMONS. 



ROOM TO THINK. 9 1 

ing pictures. He retired under his buffalo robe for the rest of 
the night. A few days after, when he became calm enough 
to refer to the subject, he intimated that he considered it the 
most ghastly joke that was ever perpetrated outside of a morgue. 
The coyote is the smallest and meanest of the wolf family. 
He will attack nothing more fierce than a rabbit or a sheep. 
His nocturnal howl is the most dangerous thing connected 
with him : when heard for the first time, it makes the boldest 
tremble, and has been known to make the character of a con- 
gressional candidate turn white in a single night. 

Leaving the camp at dawn, we proceeded directly west. Be- 
fore breakfast we rode ten miles through woods ; past farms 
where the corn was as high as a man, and the cotton-fields one 
mass of white and purple blossoms ; over prairies where innum- 
erable flowers grew, and cattle grazed. The day was hot, and 
there was not a cloud in the sky. In any other place but a 
Texas prairie the heat would have been oppressive ; but there is 
always a pleasant breeze from the Gulf sweeping across thes^ 
great tablelands, just enough to give the grass and flowers an 
undulating motion, like the gentle ripple on an inland lake. 

We camped on the banks of a small creek, cooked and ate 
breakfast, and, after resting for an hour, proceeded on our way. 

To a man who wants to think — to get away from the dis- 
tracting influences incident to life in a city — I would suggest a 
trip on the prairie, not in a buggy or wheeled vehicle, but on 
the back of a quiet pony, on whose neck the rider can drop the 
rein. Then, giving rein to his own thought, he can do more 
solid, comprehensive thinking in an hour than he could do under 
any other circumstances in a day. The doctor was offended 
on account of my treatment of him the night before. His 
words were few, but evidently his thoughts were voluminous. 

What young man is there who has not, at some time, wished 
for a place where, unheard, he might rehearse his next Friday 
night's lyceum speech ? Who is there, under such circum- 
stances, that has not tried the garret and the barn, where he 
had to lower his voice, and where he was sure of being caught 
in one of his most glowing flights of fancy, and humiliated by 
the sound of a derisive snicker at the keyhole 1 To this day it 



92 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

makes me blush to think of how I was once discovered in the 
upper story of an old warehouse, standing on a keg of nails, 
and in thunder tones putting tremendous and unanswerable 
questions to an imaginary witness supposed to be seated on a 
box of miscellaneous hardware. [It seems unnecessary to state, 
that, like the majority of the young men of this country, I once 
tampered with the study of law.] The great want of the age is 
a place where our rudimental statesmen can practise oratory 
without being subjected to the interruption of obtrusive eaves- 
droppers. This long-felt want is supplied in unlimited quanti- 
ties by the great prairies of the West. Here the budding 
politician, seeking perfection in oratory by practice, can select 
a green sod, and, standing on it, he can see for miles on either 
side, and have ocular demonstration of the fact that his voice 
will not reach the ears of any other of his species. Then and 
there he may harangue and howl until the turkey buzzard, 
away up in the blue vault above, trembles with fear, and the 
coyote, in his hole below, shrieks with envy, and not a man will 
hear ; and, when he concludes his peroration, there will be no 
kind friend around to secure him, and lead him off to a lunatic- 
asylum. Looking at the matter in this light, I certainly think 
that every village large enough to support a debating-society 
should, for the purpose just specified, be furnished with a prai- 
rie. On second thought, probably it would be better to furnish 
every prairie, especially those inhabited by hostile Indians, with 
one of our surplus debating-societies. 

At noon we rested under the shade in a live-oak grove, a spot 
with more quiet natural beauty than any we had yet seen. The 
place was somewhat higher than the surrounding prairie, and, 
unlike the low-lying timber-lands of other sections, there was 
no undergrowth. The soil, of a light sandy nature, was cov- 
ered with a gorgeous carpet of rich grass and rainbow-hued 
flowers, long vistas between the trees, ending in a broad sweep 
of undulating prairie, stretching and widening out to the hills 
on the far-away horizon. On this prairie numberless cattle 
and horses were grazing ; far out to the left the river, — a sil- 
ver fringe on the mantle of the everlasting hills, — and on its 
banks the farm of a squatter, with fields of corn and cotton, 



DINNER IN CAMP, 



93 



ragged fence, and tumble-down house ; in the near distance a 
huge canvas-covered wagon — prairie schooners they are called 
— slowly crawling along the plain, looking like a becalmed lug- 
ger on a quiet sea ; the trees overhead, luxuriant in their dark- 
green foliage, their branches scarcely moving in the gentle 







DINNER IN CAMP. 



breeze ; the somnolent influences of the hour upon birds and 
insects ; nothing engaged in active labors but the ever-busy red 
ant and the indefatigable tumble-bug, — 

"Soft shadows rippling on the tender grass, 
Soft sunlight glinting on the fresh green leaves, 
Soft winds that crisp the waters as they pass, 
Soft chirps of birds beneath the cottage eaves;" 



94 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



all the rest of nature asleep, and ''the very elements as 
silent as the trickling rill of molasses on the roof of a pan- 
cake," as the doctor remarked in his classic way. In this love- 
ly spot we cooked dinner ; or rather the doctor cooked it, while 
I laid the table. Laying the table in a camp like ours was a 
very mild kind of labor, — merely the throwing of two tin cups 
on the grass, and the dropping of a sack of salt between the 
plates. 

While the coffee was boiling and the bacon frying, we dis- 
played some masterly inactivity in lying on the grass, thinking 
of far-away scenes, and scooping ants out of our ears. While 
thus lost in revery, most of our dinner got lost in the stomach 
of two vile razor-back hogs that took advantage of our abstrac- 
tion, and abstracted all our bacon and part of our corn-bread. 




IN SEARCH OF SHELTER. 



95 



CHAPTER VIII. 




j^^^^fHt THE previous night's experi- 
ftf^4^^^^^' the doctor thought it 
would be better to stop at 
some house, if we could find 
' ' ' one about sundown. As we 

rode along in the evening, we met a man who told us that we 
could probably be accommodated for the night at the house of 
a cotton-planter named Magruder, who lived about a mile off 
the road. 

" I have heard a great deal about the hospitality of the South- 
ern planter," said the doctor, "and I have no doubt that Mr. 
Magrud'er will probably refuse to let us leave the shadow of his 
hospitable roof for the next ten days." 

I looked at the doctor to see if he were in earnest, and per- 
ceived that he was, to an utterly incredible extent. He had 
read a great deal about cotton-planters and their baronial sur- 
roundings before the war, and he had not yet realized the 
immensity of the change that had taken place. 

" What kind of a place do you suppose Magruder's is } " I 
queried. 

Said the doctor impressively, "Of course, I cannot exactly 
say ; but I suppose the old family mansion is pleasantly situated 
in the middle of a park of venerable live-oaks, with moss pend- 
ent from their sturdy limbs. The fat and happy black peas- 



g6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

antry will be at work in the fields, singing their touching old 
plantation songs. I take Mr. Magruder to be a tall, handsome 
man, with black hair and eyes, uniting the haughty reserve of 
the Spanish hidalgo with the geniality of a" — 

" Of a what ? " I interrupted. " Of a man who wants to bor- 
row five dollars from you .'* " 

As I had not suggested the word the doctor needed, he kept 
on hunting for it. 

"Of a — of a" — 

" Geniality of an auctioneer.? " I suggested ; "of a lightening- 
rod man .'' of a deputy-sheriff hunting for jurors ? " 

"No, that is not it ; but never mind," said the doctor: "we 
will find out when we get there. No doubt, we will discover 
Mr. Magruder surrounded by a few select friends and neighbors, 
dispensing the hospitality for which the planter of the South is 
proverbial. But I do not see any signs of the plantation." 

" Perhaps we had better ask at this shanty," I remarked, 
pointing to a dilapidated building that needed repairs and white- 
wash before it would be good enough for a cow to live in, but 
which was evidently inhabited by man. Most of the fence was 
down, and the gate was gone : so we rode up to within shout- 
ing distance of the house, with the hope of acquiring informa- 
tion that would lead us to the castellated mansion cf the 
chivalric cotton-planter. Col. Magruder. 

" Hello, there ! " shouted the doctor. 

In Texas this is the way visitors have of announcing their 
presence. It is much more convenient than dismounting and 
ringing the door-bell, especially when there happens to be nei- 
ther door nor bell ; and then it sounds romantic and mediaeval. 
There was no answer to the first summons : so the doctor again 
whooped a defiance at the house, like a herald in ancient times 
challenging the inmates of some castle to surrender. It would 
not have surprised me to have heard a voice from the old ruin 
shout, " What ! Ho ! without there ! Minions, seize the caitiff 
at the postern gate, and hurl him from the loftiest battlements 
into the seething moat that flows past the dungeon-keep ! " 
But, instead of that, we heard a piping voice from the ramparts 
of the old cowpen say, — 



THE PLANTER'S RESIDENCE. 97 

" Hello, yourself ! " \ 

The voice proceeded fram what we. at first supposed to be a 
bundle of rags. We soon found that a native addressed us. 

" Can you tell me how far it is to Col. Magruder's planta- 
tion } " asked the doctor. 

"You are thar, stranger: I'm Col. Magruder." 

I bent over my saddle to conceal some of my emotion. The 
doctor seemed dazed : he was betwildered, and it was some time 
before he recovered sufficiently to say, " Can we stay here for 
the night, Colonel 1 " 

"Well, yes, I reckon as you kin, if you kin put up with the 
accommodations. The old woman Js down with the chills, but 
we will do what we kin for you." \ 

We dismounted, and the colonel pc>>inted out what he called 
the stable. It was a miserable open sbed, inhabited by a family 
of pigs. We did not wish to accustom- our ponies to luxuries 
that they might miss afterwards, so we d'id not put them in the 
shed : we tied them to a tree. We have n o doubt that Magru- 
der believed it to be a really comfortable stable. When Don 
Quixote started out on his travels, and stop^ped at a very com- 
mon kind of inn, he labored under the hairucination that the 
inn was a stately castle, that the innkeeper was a nobleman of 
exalted rank, and that all the pewter spoons wctc silver, and the 
brass candlesticks were pure gold. In the pres ent instance it 
was the innkeeper (Magruder), and not the trav-eller, who was 
laboring under hallucinations. 

Having attended to the wants of our horses, we -walked over 
to the house, and took seats on the gallery. It was \«a low one- 
story house, or, rather, two houses joined together by'ione con- 
tinuous roof. In this kind of building, called a douKble log- 
house, the space between the two sections forms an ope'ln hall, 
used as a dining-room, and a convenient place where sMdles, 
wagon-covers, sacks of cornmeal, and other collaterals, csan be 
hung upon the floor. In this cool and shady apartment, ^called 
the gallery, so necessary in warm climates, the inhabitanUs — 
men, women, children, chickens, and dogs — sleep during \the 
sultry hours after dinner. In this breezy hall-way hangs sVs- 
pended from the roof a bucket of water, and resting on the sur-- 

\ 

\ 
\ 

\ 
\ 



98 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

face of the water is a drinking-cup fashioned out of a gourd or 
a cocoanut-shell. The chinks betwen the logs that form the 
walls of the house are filled with pebbles and mortar, or mud. 
The roof is of cypress shingles. The mud-built cells of the 
dirt-dauber fresco the rafters, and the yellow-jacket buzzes out 
and in through the holes in the cedar logs of the wall. 

Col. Magruder might have been called — without injury to 
the sacred cause of truth — a vei-y spare man. He was like the 
geometrical defimtion of a straight line, and he looked as if he 
.might be used advantageously in sounding artesian wells. The 
only things the colonel seemed to be well provided with were 
hair and bile. 

''Travelled fur, gentlemfjn .^ " inquired the colonel, when we 
had seated ourselves on hide-bottomed chairs on the gallery. 
We called him "colonel," although we did not know that such 
was his title; but the generic appellation of "colonel" or 
"judge" being generally used in Texas between strangers, we 
instinctively selected colonel. We thought it appropriate to 
the old relic, as he had a halt in his gait suggestive of the 
perils of war and of a wooden leg. 

"We came from below Richmond to-day. You seem to have 
a very fine country here, Coloi^l." 

" Yes, sir : the best and healthfullest country in the world, 
sir. A man tha't couldn't live here couldn't live in the Garding 
of Eden, with -'a drug-store next door. You'ns are strangers 
from the Statues, I reckon .? " 

"Yes : we/ have only been in Texas during the last few days." 

"Travelh.n' fur yur health, or jest prospectin' around.?" 

The do'ctor made four or five wild gestures at once to drive 
away thfi flies, and answered cheerfully, considering the sur- 
roundi);{gs, that we were travelling principally for pleasure, and 
enjoyi-Qg ourselves very much. 

" Well, as fur pleasure," said the colonel, " you'll not p'raps 
hev a's fine vittles nor as fancy cookin' as you could git whar 
you l^em from ; but what you git in Texas will -be wholesome, 
and/better fur the stomach, than the high-toned slops you git in 
the? cities : and as fur health, why, it's the healthfullest country 
ip the world ; and, if you'ns stay here fur a couple of months, 



CORN-BREAD AND FRY. 



99 



you will absorb and carry away enough of it in your system to 
last a lifetime. You may think it's mirak'lous, but it's so." 

Some one inside called the colonel. He shuffled into the 
house, but immediately re-appeared with an enormous hand- 
bell big enough to call together a congregation in a sparsely 
settled county. After he had walked up and down, swinging 
the bell until the air for miles around was filled with discord, 
and the people on the coast i 

must have thought that 
there was a Chicago fire in 
some of the inland towns, 
he gave the musical ding- 
dong a final jingle, and for- 
mally invited us to '' step 
into the dining-room for sup- 
per." The doctor and I both 
wondered that he had not 
asked us to " rendezvous in 
the salle a manger^ and par- 
take of a slight refectory." 

The meal was spread on 
a plain pine table without 
cover. We did not at first 
know that it was a pine ta- 
ble, owing to the fact that it did not seem to have been washed 
since the Texas revolution. Supper consisted of coffee without 
milk, flies without butter, corn-bread, and "fry." "Fry" means 
rancid bacon charred by the action of fire. We sat down at the 
table, — the colonel, the doctor, and I ; but, before we began our 
repast, the old gentleman got up, went out again, and dislocated 
the echoes with that infernal old bell. This brought his tWo 
sons to the supper-table. They were about twenty odd years 
of age, and did not look as if they had absorbed more than 
their rightful share of the " healthfullest climate in the world." 

"Do you take sweetning in your coffee .'' Help yourselves 
to some corn-bread. Have some fry," said our host, with the 
air of a man offering a choice from a bill of fare covering all 
the delicacies of the season. 




COL. MAGRUDER. 



lOO ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

I noticed a bottle containing some white powder on the 
table. One after the other the three men helped themselves 
to a small quantity of the powder on the end of a knife. I 
found that the bottle contained quinine ; and the drug, as I 
afterwards learned, was actually as staple as salt on the dinner- 
tables of the people in that section, being used by each mem- 
ber of the family as a preface to every meal. 

" Have you lived here a long time, Colonel t " said the 
doctor. 

" I kem here, sir, from Mississippi in '46. I hev never been 
back in the old State but once since, and I couldn't live than 
I was disunwell all the time I staid thar. It is a very unhealthy 
country, Major, 'specially the eastern part, whar I kem from." 

I was too much engaged sawing at the "fry" with an ancient 
knife that turned around in the handle, and astonishing my 
inner structure with chunks of it, to engage much in table- 
talk ; but the doctor kept up our end of the conversation. 

*' Any game around here, Colonel 1 "said he. 

'' Game is mighty scarce hejfe now, sure. When I kem here 
in '46 thar was dead-oodles of game all around here, — bar, and 
deer, and wild turkey, and all kinds of varmints." 

" The country is too thickly settled for game to stay here 
now, I suppose," suggested the doctor. 

''Thar's right smart of people here, compared to what thar 
was when I kem here in '46. The game is nigh all gone, 
exceptin' along in the bottoms, whar you will occasionally find 
a bar or a wildcat." 

" You appear to be an old man. Colonel ; but apparently you 
are good for some years' hunting yet." 

"You may say that. Major," said the longitudinal old skele- 
ton ; "and I may thank this healthful climate that I can still 
heft as much as some of the young folks. When I kem here in 
'46, I was thirty-nine years old. You may think it's mirak'lous, 
but it's so. I'm seventy-three now, and I'm going to live right 
here the balance of my days." 

" How are your crops. Colonel } " 

" Sufferin', sir, sufferin' for rain. I have been here since '46; 
and exceptin' once, — the dry year, that was '57, — I never saw 



FISB-STORIES BY THE DOCTOR. lOI 

such a dry time as we are havin' now. It didn't used to be this 
away ; for when I kem " — 

The colonel stopped suddenly, and began to shake. His face 
turned blue, and he shook until the dishes rattled on the table. 

"Are you sick, Colonel.'*" asked the doctor somewhat anx- 
iously. 

" Me sick ! " said the colonel, and he smiled : at least, that 
is what he meant it should be taken for ; but, between chatter- 
ing teeth and the attempt at scorn, it was a most unhealthy 
kind of a smile. "Why, I kem here in '46; and I don't remem- 
ber, in all that time, feeling as well as I do jest now. I'm only 
threatened with a chill." 

The conversation turned on fishing. The doctor is an enthu- 
siast on the subject of fishing. He can catch more fish in a 
given time than any man I ever knew ; that is, he can really 
capture a greater number of fish, and hook a more choice 
assortment of monster trout and catfish, than any ordinary liar 
I have met. The gigantic bass, the enormous trout, the tre- 
mendous catfish, that he has hooked, and that eventually got 
away from him by the breaking of hooks, catching of lines on 
snags, and by other distressing accidents common to men who 
fish on Sunday, would, if all recaptured and gathered together, 
fill six refrigerator-cars, besides all the men, women, and chil- 
dren in South-western Texas. The doctor has a wonderful o:ift 
for estimating exactly, to an ounce, the weight of the fish that 
he hooks. What makes this gift more remarkable is the fact, 
that he can tell you, to an ounce, the weight of every one of the 
large fish he has lost. While he may sometimes err regarding 
the avoirdupois of the small fry that he brings home on the 
string, I have never known him to make a single mistake in 
estimating the weight of the large ones that get away. 

The doctor recalled a very fishy reminiscence of a day's sport 
on the Savannah River, and told how a six-pound bass engaged 
his attention for two hours, and how, having carelessly allowed 
the line to become slack, the bass, who had evidently been 
watching for an opportunity, gave the line two or three hitches 
around a cypress stump, and then coolly, at his leisure, gnawed 
the line until it broke above its point of contact with the stump ; 



I02 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

the fish unhitching himself, and swimming off, wagging his 
tail as if he were accustomed to indulge in such strategy every 
day. This suggested some piscatorial lying on the part of the 
colonel, who gave us an experience he had with a catfish a 
short time after his arrival in Texas in 1846. 

"I had been down to the crick," said he, "and found it was 
in good condition, — just been a freshet ; enough to discolor the 
water. I went home, and got my tackle and some worms ; and, 
before I had been at work twenty minutes, I had got a fine 
string of young cat and perch. I knew that thar war some 
whoppin' big catfish in that hole : so I bated with a piece of 
chicken-liver, and caught a mudcat weighing about ten pounds. 
Now, what I'm goin' to tell, you may think mirak'lous, but it is 
as true as the fourth chapter of Judaea. I put that ten-pounder 
on the string with the rest, and went down the crick a bit. 
When I returned, thar was a big moccason coiled around the 
string of fish. The string had broke, and the old catfish was a 
floppin' and a strugglin' like mad. He got loose, and what do 
you think he did } Well, gentlemen, you may think it mirak'- 
lous, and I can't hardly expect you to believe it, but it is a gos- 
pel fact, and it occurred down to that thar crick in the fall of 
'46. That old cat, sir, jest wriggled up to the moccason as he 
lay coiled around the bunch of fish. He took two coils of the 
snake in his mouth, and shuck her like a dog shakes a rat. Fur 
about half a minute it rained small catfish and goggle-eyed 
perch- all around whar I stood. The snake's back was broke in 
two places, and he was chawed up considerable. Gentlemen, 
you hear me, it was a boss sight to see how mad that old mud- 
cat was. His fins and stickers stood straight out, and there 
was a bow in his back like a figure 5. I was so pleased that 
I histed him back into the crick ; and he is thar now, for all I 
know. Now, you may think it's mirak'lous, but it's the truth I'm 
tellin' you, gentlemen. Won't you walk out on the gallery.^" 

We walked out. The doctor was oppressively silent : he 
seemed to need fresh air. The old man's son Sam suggested 
to his brother Bud that it would be well for Bud to " 'tend to 
the mending of that fence to-morrow." 

"Can't do it," said Bud: *' to-morrow is my chill day, and you 



" CHILLS IS NOTHIN\ " 



103 



might know it, I think, by this time ; but you are so wrapped 
up in yourself, you never keep the hang of anybody's chills but 
your own." 

''Don't get mad about it," replied Sam. "I'd fix the blamed 
thing to-morrow myself ; but I hev to go to town, and next day is 
my chill day : but I reckon it will keep until Friday ; then I can 
attend to it myself." 

" Do you ever have 
chills yourself. Colo- 
nel ?" asked the doc- 
tor. 

*'Oh! chills is noth- 
in', a little aggravatin' 
sometimes, you know; 
but, in a healthful 
country like this, we 
can afford to hev a 
chill or two now and 
then. Mine is the 
seven-day ague : so I 
hev lots of time to 
rest between chills. 
We hain't got no 
small-pox or lumbago 
or leprosy, or any of 
them things; and, if 
we hev a chill or a 
touch of rheumatiz 
once in a while, we 
don't write to the pa- 
pers about it. We 
can't reckon on all 

the blessin's and conveniences of paradise this side a better 
world. It ain't nat'ral to expect it. We don't appreciate 
health as we orter. Talk of chills ! Why, back whar I kem 
from, in Mississippi, they fire off a gun every day at twelve 
o'clock for folks to take their quinine by. When they want to 
get the persimmons off'n a tree, they tie a feller to the trunk, 




•^-r 



HARVESTING PERSIMMONS. 



I04 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

and they sit around and wait for his chill to come on, and the 
persimmons to drap, which they do simultaneous. He fetches 
the persimmons every time, but it don't do to leave him tied 
thar too long. The tree would get so shuck up, it wouldn't 
bar next year. No., sir : we ain't half thankful for the health 
we enjoy. Why, sir, when I kem here in '46, I was a skeleton. 
You may think it mirak'lous, but it's so. I was used to being 
sick six days in the week, and I usually lay abed all day Sun- 
day. I was consumptive and bilious till I couldn't rest, and 
now you see what I am." 

We saw what he was, — a prematurely decrepit old man, 
broken down with malarial chills, rheumatism, corn-bread, and 
fry ; an attenuated fool, satisfied with his condition because he 
did not know a better one. 

Until it was time to retire for the night, the colonel enter- 
tained us with stories of the early days when he came to Texas. 
Most of his anecdotes had reference to the healthiness of the 
Brazos bottom. 

An entomologist once told me, that in his garden there was a 
bow-legged, wall-eyed, and consumptive potato-bug that had 
lived all his life on one little dried-up potato-vine. It never 
had explored any of the neighboring vines. It opposed free 
schools, and refused to subscribe to the daily papers. Eventu- 
ally it died. To the last it was strong in the belief that its 
potato-vine was the most verdant and luxuriant piece of foliage 
in the universe, and that it was the most athletic and robust 
Adonis of a potato-bug in existence. What absurd and foolish 
things potato-bugs are anyhow ! 

It was late, and the colonel suggested that it was "time to 
lie down a spell." We slept on the gallery, sandwiched be- 
tween a horse-blanket and a patch-work quilt that looked as if 
it had come to Texas in '46, and had been under malarial influ- 
ences ever since. A very small man must have been measured 
for that quilt. When we got it up over our shoulders, our 
ankles were bare : when our feet were covered, the north end 
of the quilt could barely be discovered in the distance. It was 
under these circumstances that we realized that man's ex- 
tremity is the mosquito's opportunity, and also that a Texas 



''THE VITTLES SOT OUT:' 105 

bed-bug can take up more room in a bed than any thing else, 
except a broken spring in the mattress, or a small boy with cold 
feet. 

We got up at sunrise. We had made a solemn vow during 
the night to deprive the colonel of our company as soon as pos- 
sible. The doctor intimated that the climate was so healthy 
that we thought we had absorbed enough health to last us for 
life, if we would be careful not to waste any of it. We visited 
our horses, while Bud and the old pioneer of '46 prepared 
breakfast ; and we were gratified at finding them where he had 
tied them the previous night. Upon returning to the house, 
we found Col. Magruder walking up and down, swinging the 
breakfast-bell. 

"Walk in, gentlemen : the vittles is sot out," said he. We 
sat down to a breakfast that varied in no detail from the supper 
of the night previous, except that the "sweetnin'" had given 
out, and we had to take our coffee without sugar. 

The ordinary Texas farmer lives on corn-bread, bacon, and 
coffee, without variety, all the year round. Three times a day 
the same bill of fare is set before the household. Vegetables 
are not cultivated to any extent ; and, as it is too much trouble 
to bring up the cows and milk them, the owners forego the use 
of milk, and the calves benefit by the farmer's indolence. 
Some, however, have milk on the table ; a few provide butter : 
but they are exceptions ; they are the wealthy and luxurious 
part of the community ; they were not born in Texas, but 
brought with them these extravagant tastes, acquired in a life 
of epicurean indulgence in some northern clime, where they 
had to work hard only three hundred and odd days in the year 
to make a living. In Texas I have hundreds of times heard 
men say, " There is no other country in the world where a man 
can make a living with as little exertion." But what a living, 
and what a life ! I have known Texans who owned thousands 
of horned cattle, anid yet did not taste fresh meat, milk, or 
butter half a dozen times a year. I have seen their crops 
choked with weeds, while the owners were playing the fiddle, 
and drinking bad whiskey in the grocery. I have seen their 
cattle die of hunger during a severe winter, because no effort 



lo6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

was made during the summer to harvest the abundant crop 
of prairie-grass, that makes excellent hay, and is free to all. 
I knew one of these men who threw his corn into the Trinity 
River because he could not get fifty cents a bushel for it ; but 
then, Texas is a great State for hogs and other brutes that go 
to make life a pleasant dream. 

Mrs. Hanks was a very pious Texan, who lived in the usual 
miserable way. She hired a man from Vermont to work on 
her farm. Mrs. Hanks noticed that he did not ask a blessing 
before eating. She grieved over this for a week. Then she 
spoke to him, as he sat down to supper in his usual graceless 
way. She said, " Don't you think, that, before you begin to 
eat, you should offer a word of thanks to the Giver of all good, 
for the food before you } " 

He paused, and, closing his eyes, he bowed his head ; while 
the old lady stood with folded hands, inwardly rejoicing that 
she had brought him to a sense of his duty. He said, "■ O Lord, 
bacon and corn-bread for breakfast, corn-bread and bacon for 
dinner, and a little of both for supper. Damn bacon and corn- 
bread. Amen." 

This parallels the case of the Scotchman, who is said to have 
described a dinner he had been invited to, as follows : — 

" First I got praties and kale ; 
Then I got kale after that again ; 
Then I got kale upon kale ; 
And then I got cauld kale het again." 

But to return to the hospitable Magruder. The doctor 
seemed to experience a great deal of satisfaction in hugging 
the delusion that the colonel would not require any remunera- 
tion for the suffering we had undergone. 

" I verily believe," said the doctor, as we talked the matter 
over, ''that if we were to hint that we wanted to pay him, he 
would feel around for that squirrel-gun, as he did this morning 
when I suggested that the fog from the river might be injuri- 
ous to weak lungs." 

My impressipn was, that the gun would be appealed to if 
there were any hesitancy on our part in settling up. 

NotwithstandirV the joy we felt in knowing that we were 



FILING A COUNTER-CLAIM, \0^ 

eating our last meal under the colonel's roof, we did not have 
much appetite. We went out to the lot, in a subdued kind of 
ecstasy, to saddle up our horses preparatory to making our 
escape. The colonel experienced a great deal of sorrow on 
learning that we were determined to go ; and we really felt that 
his was genuine sorrow, when he subsequently informed us 
that we owed him four dollars for the accommodation we and 
our horses had suffered from so abundantly. I, however, filed 
a counter-claim of a dollar and a half, covering the value of one 
of my spurs and the doctor's hitching-rein, which had been 
stolen by Bud, who had left immediately after breakfast. The 
colonel was so anxious to fondle our money, that he admitted 
the claim, uttering, however, horrible imprecations on his 
offspring, who had often put him to unnecessary expense, and 
whose carelessness in mistaking harness he could not suffi- 
ciently deprecate. He hoped, he said, that if we ever came that 
way again, we would call and make ourselves at home, actually 
mentioning, as an inducement, the utter absence of all malarial 
diseases. He said he knew whereof he spoke, for had he not 
been there since 1846.'' 

After getting about two hundred yards from the house, the 
doctor turned and galloped back, called the colonel out, and 
said, " Excuse me, sir, for troubling you ; but I forgot to ask 
you how long you had lived in this healthy part of the coun- 
try. I want to make a note of it." . 

"■ Well, pshaw ! didn't I tell you } I declare, how forgetful 
I am gittin' ! I kem here, sir, in '46; and, if you jest wait 
a minute, I'll tell you the remarkablest and most mirak'lous" — 

The doctor did not wait ; and the most remarkable event that 
may have occurred in that healthy neck of the woods in the 
year '46 may remain unrecorded forever. 



io8 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER IX. 







m>\ 









%\\ 







PAST US, in bands of twos and 
threes, rushed laughing, shout- 
ing darkies, — the men notable 
for their awkwardness of seat, 
gorgeousness of necktie, and 
the amount of flop in their 
elbows ; the women, more 
graceful riders than the men, 
some with riding-habits of va- 
' "^ .-''"C-U - -n. rious styles and colors, some 

without, but all wearing cotton sun-bonnets, and nineteen out 
of a possible twenty chewing snuff. 

What could this concourse of jovial humanity mean ? Was 
there a circus in the neighborhood ? or was some unfortunate 
horse-speculator about to be lynched to make a Texas holiday ? 
It could not be a circus ; for the people were going away from 
town, and riding in the direction of the woods. The projectors 
of a lynching matinee seldom give the public sufBcient notice 
to enable them to attend the obsequies in time. The doctor 
solved the enigma by the very simple expedient of asking the 
first negro who came along. 

*' Camp-meetin', sah, ob de African branch ob de Methodis' 
Church." 

The doctor took the witness, and, after some pertinent and 
impertinent questions, enticed the following information out of 
him : the camp-meeting ground was in a grove about a mile 
and a half off our route. The people had begun to arrive the 
evening before. They anticipated having a good time. Broth- 
er Brown, a celebrated exhorter, — the great gun of the occa- 



GOING TO CAMP-MEETING. 109 

sion, — was expected to arrive upon the ground that morning. 
The meeting was to last two weeks, and a ''powerful sight" of 
people were expected to attend. Hostile movements against 
the strongholds of sin and Satan were to be inaugurated by the 
discharge of the aforementioned piece of ordnance at noon that 
day. Here was the chance to avail ourselves of an opportunity 
we had long been hoping for, — to see the often-described camp- 
meeting of the Southern negro ; no burnt-cork and music-hall 
imitation, but a real affair of the none-genuine-without-the- 
name-blown-in-the-bottle sort. 

We concluded to go and spend the day, seeing what was to 
be seen, and hearing what was to be heard, at the camp-meet- 
ing. Following the crowd, we soon left the road on which we 
had been riding. Turning to the left, and descending a gentle 
elevation on the prairie, we looked down on a beautiful plain 
dotted over with groves of timber. A small stream meandered 
through this grass and flower-carpeted valley. On its banks, 
and in the largest grove, was the camp-ground, — tents made 
of canvas, whose component parts were tattered patch-work 
quilts, and remnants of female garments ; huts built of earth 
and rocks ; and arbors walled with branches, and roofed with 
leaves and moss. Their tabernacles were arranged with some 
resemblance to streets and squares. In the central square was 
the arbor, — the grand stand, as the sporting instincts of the 
unregenerate doctor prompted him to call it. This structure 
consisted of posts, probably ten feet in height, sunk in the 
ground. These supported a roof of branches, moss, and leaves, 
covering an area of perhaps a quarter of an acre. The floor 
was carpeted with leaves to a depth of several inches. Rude 
benches afforded seats for several hundred worshippers. 

At one end was the preacher's stand, — a platform of logs, on 
which were two barrels with a board on top of them for a desk. 
Chairs for the preachers were on the platform, and the conven- 
tional pitcher and glass rested on the end of one of the barrels. 

Looking down on the scene in the valley below, we saw peo- 
ple radiating to a common centre, coming from a distance of 
ten miles on every side. The majority were on horseback, 
some in ox-wagons, a few in buggies, but none on foot. 



no 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Around the camp-ground were rows of wagons ; hundreds of 
horses and oxen were staked all around, feeding on the luxuri- 
ant prairie-grass ; others were being led or driven to the stream 
for water. The crowds arriving; the noise of unhitching; the 
"Whoa, Brandy!" "Gee, Brown!" of the dusky drivers; the 
cracking of whips ; and the boisterous greeting of friends and 
acquaintances, — made one of the most animated and novel 
scenes I ever beheld. 

" Howdy, Jake ? How is ye ? " 

" I's tolerable, thanky, Pete. How is you gettin' along t " 
" I's tolerable. How's your folks } " 
" They's tolerable. How's you'ns } " 
" Oh, they's all keepin' kind o' tolerable ! " 
And so on, through inquiries relative to the health and pros- 
perity of a whole tribe of kinsfolk and friends. A negro never 
likes to commit himself in the matter of a statement regarding 

his health. He seldom admits 
being in any more robust condi- 
tion than that expressed by the 
negro's favorite term, " tolera- 
ble." 

Just as we arrived on the 
ground, a man with a huge tin 
horn mounted a stump, and 
poured forth his soul in strains 
of prodigious volume and dia- 
bolical cadence. The sound of 
his horn was the warning note of 
preparation, given half an hour be- 
fore the preaching was to begin. 
Hitching our horses to a tree, 
we proceeded to the arbor. We 
The benches were 
divided into two rows by an aisle. On one side were the 
seats occupied by the female portion of the audience ; on the 
other side sat the men ; and around in front of the preacher's 
stand was an open space fenced off by a row of reserved seats 
for the mourners. Several uncles with shining bald heads, val- 







THE HORN-FIEND. 



were not a mmute too soon to get a seat. 



THE HYMN. — THE PRAYER. in 

liable for their responsive abilities, and a few unctious old aun- 
ties celebrated for their shouting-qualities, had seats in the 
front row. The rest of' the audience more than filled the arbor. 
Many were sitting outside on the ground, under the shade of 
the surrounding trees. Five preachers sat on the platform. 
We afterwards learned that only one of the five could write. 
Some of them could only read with great labor and much spell- 
ing ; yet all of them, like Timothy, knew the Scriptures from 
their youth up. The negroes' wonderful powers of memorizing 
served them to good purpose. They could recite any number 
of hymns, and even long chapters, without looking at the 
book. 

While we were wondering how the exercises would begin, the 
tin-horn fiend brayed forth his second warning. As the vile 
sound died away, a solemn silence fell on the assembly, broken 
in a few seconds by one of the ancient sisters in a quavering 
voice beginning to sing "The Old Ship of Zion," — a favorite 
hymn at all times with the negro, who loves a lively chorus bet- 
ter than sense or appropriate words. 

Before the second line was sung, five hundred voices had 
joined in, and were singing with a force that threatened to 
crack the firmament above. The volume of sound was immense. 
There was nothing cultivated or elaborate about it. There was 
not a trace of Italian opera in it ; but there was music there, — 
music in the rough, and mixed probably, but music nevertheless. 
When the first hymn had been sung, a preacher arose and read 
another, two lines at a time. 

After the singing of this hymn, a gray-haired brother led in 
prayer. He asked the Lord to be with us during the continu- 
ance of the meeting; to lead the sinners from the "arrows of 
their ways, and pluck dem like branders from de burnin' ; " and 
to "make a powerful sight ob rattlin' 'mong de dry bones." 
He requested the Lord to keep an eye on the young men who 
were in the habit of bringing whiskey to the camp, and disturb- 
ing the worship, and asked, that, if milder means would not be 
effective, he might "send de lightnin' from heaben, and break 
de bottles in der pockets, right whar dey stand." 

During the prayer, brethren and sisters in the audience punc- 



112 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

tiiated the petitioner's sentences with loud-spoken responses, 
— " Amen ! " '' Yes, Lord ! " '' Thank God ! " etc. 

The prayer was couched in uncouth and ungrammatical lan- 
guage ; but the evident sincerity of the suppliant, his child-like 
faith, his unselfish petition, and his confidence in God's willing- 
ness to hear and answer prayer, would have banished the sneer 
or smile from the face of any but a heartless fool, and would 
have commanded the respect of all good men. 

After prayer, the local preacher of the district, a young man 
of some education, and fluent of speech, made several an- 
nouncements, read a chapter and commented on it. Very few 
negro peculiarities were to be noticed in his speech or the 
intonation of his voice ; yet, although he was evidently more 
learned than Brother Brown, he was not credited with so much 
ability as that man of powerful gifts. 

Brother Brown was an uneducated field-hand in slavery times. 
After the war, without any other preparation than the purchase 
of a tall hat, he began to preach ; and, at the time we saw him, 
he had acquired a wonderful reputation as a ''mighty movin' 
preacher." He was a powerful rattler of dry bones. He had 
never been known to preach a sermon without bringing some 
of his hearers to the shouting-point. Under his ministrations, 
conversions, so-called, were assured facts, — matters to be cal- 
culated on as soon as he was announced to preach. 

After another hymn had been sung, Brother Brown arose, 
and spoke as follows : — 

" Brederin an' sisters, by turnin' to de good book, in de fourth 
chapter ob de Secon' Book ob Kings, yo' will find whar de sons 
ob de prophet say to Elishar, ' O man ob God ! dar is death in 
de pot.' Dis yar text am full ob meanin' to dem as kin under- 
stand it. Dat yo' may co.mprehend de follerin' elucidations, 
I's gwine ter divide it inter two heads, — first an' fo'most ob 
dese is death ; an', secondly an' lastly, is de pot. 

*' My hearers, death is a solum fac'. It's solum to all crit- 
ters, from de littlest chicken to de la'gest man ; but dar's a 
differunse 'tween de chicken an' de man. After de chicken's 
done dead, yo' knows whar he's gwine to, — at least, I spec' 
some ob yo' brederin is 'sperienced on dat subjec' ; but de 



THE TEXT: ''DEATH IN DE POT 



113 



man, when de 'stroyin' angel ob death says, ' Dis yar night yo' 
soul will be required ob yo',' — who can tell whar he is gwine ? 
Ef he has lived righteous, paid his debts, an' lubbed de good 
Lord, his soul is at once intermitted to de kingdom ob heaben, 
whar de streets is ob gold, an' whar moths are not corrupt, an' 
de thieves do not break through nor steal ; but, ef he has died 
widout savin' grace, he's gwine down whar de worm gnaws, an' 



C \n V N-. ~ ^ 




A MIGHTY MOVIN' PREACHER." 



de brimstone fire burns, froo all de regions ob etarnity. No, 
sisters ! no, brudders ! yo' can't mos' always sometimes tell whar 
folks is gwine when dey die, — leastwise, not by obsarvin' der 
actions hyar, Dey may gib a gorjis 'sperience in meetin' ; dey 
may shout de shingles off'n de roof in class-meetin' ; dey may 
pray in de pra'r-meetin' louder'n a railroad train gwine ober a 
tressle, — an' den, on sec'lar 'casions, sich as when dey hab ter 



114 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

pay de dog-tax, or when de oxins don't gee to suit 'em, dey will 
swar like all possesst, an' cuss wuss'n a steamboat capting. 

" Yes, brederin, hit's mighty onsartin to figger on : but one 
thing yo' is sho ob ; one thing is as sartin as cold vittles on 
washin'-day, an' dat dar sartinty is death — death to all ob us. 
Death is all aroun' us, — it's in de a'r, in de water ; it's in mules, 
and Oder guns yo' didn't know was loaded ; it's eben, as our 
tex' tells us, in de pot. Yes, death is sho ; an' de judgment 
day is a comin', an' when de rocks will split, an' de mountins 
fall ; when de elements will melt wid ferocious heat, an' de 
heabens depart like a — a — like a — . But to resume. Dis 
yar tex' ob mine tells us dat dar's death in de pot. What pot } 
Brederin, de pot spoken ob hyar is a figger ob speech, an' means 
sin. It means de whiskey-bottle ; it means stealin' an' lyin' 
an' sabbath-breakin' an' votin' de Dimerkratic ticket, an' de 
debbil's work ginrally. Fur example : look at de 'spression 
yo' may hev of'n heard when one man tells anoder to 'go to 
pot.' What wur de signification ob dat dar 'spression, Nothin* 
mo' nor less dan a perlite way ob tellin' him to go to de debbil. 

" Now, dis yar pot ob wickedness an' 'bomination is a bilin,' 
even in dis yar neighborhood. I's done felt de fumes ob it 
right in dis meetin'. It's filled wid de debbil's broth. De 
congredients ob de broth is made up ob balls an' dances, ob 
kyard-playin' an' late hours, ob swarin' an' lyin', ob circuses, 
an' ob meet-me-up-de-alley-after-supper's-ober. De debbil his- 
self done put whiskey in to season de mess; an' mos' ob yo' 
likes it, an', when yo' gits de chance, swallers it like iled molas- 
ses, as I might 'spress it in a kind ob figgerative way. But it's 
bad med'cin, sho's yo' born. As de tex' tells us, dar's death in 
de pot ; an' dis yar death means hell. Yo' may p'r'aps taste ob 
de contents ob de pot. Yo' may take a few spoonfuls now an* 
agin, as it war, an' yo' may recover. De good Lord is mighty 
ter save ; but ef yo' take a full meal, an' feel like yo' want some 
mo', den good-by, nigger ! In view ob de sartinty ob death, an' 
de onreliableness ob life, we should be makin' preparation for 
de future." 

Following this came an exhortation of about an hour's 
length. The foregoing was spoken in a deliberate manner. 



RELIGIOUS PAROXYSMS. II5 

and in a moderate tone. Gradually, as the preacher advanced 
in his theme, his voice became louder, and, in proportion as he 
warmed to his work, his speech became more fluent, and his 
gestures more demonstrative. The ejaculations of the audi- 
ence increased in about the same ratio as that of the preacher's 
voice. His fervor was contagious ; his excitement communi- 
cated itself to the people ; and, toward the end, the whole audi- 
ence began swaying their bodies backwards and forwards, and 
indorsed the preacher's doctrines with continuous groans and 
shrill cries. And when he rounded off a thundering sentence, 
and paused to wipe the perspiration off his forehead, the pious 
applause culminated in a perfect storm of cries and aniens. 

It was in the old man's peroration that he came out strong, 
and showed the secret of his popularity. He described heaven 
as a city of golden streets, an elysium of leisure, a milk and 
honey land of Canaan ; the home of everlasting song ; a place 
where hunger, thirst, and want never came, and where hoes 
were unknown, and the sound of the buck-saw never heard. 
He painted in brilliant colors the triumphant entry of the 
colored soldiers of the cross into the New Jerusalem, and their 
glorious reception by the white-robed angels, who would con- 
duct them to "de table ob de Lamb." Suddenly his beaming 
countenance changed ; and with horror in the expression of his 
eye, and terror in the gestures of his hands, he drew a picture 
of the judgment day, and of the seething caldron of a sulphu- 
rous hell, where the wicked shall dwell throughout all the 
endless ages of an eternity of woe. 

The groans of his audience became louder as he proceeded ; 
and, before the completion of his terrible picture, one after 
another — as many as a dozen of his hearers, mostly on the 
sister's side of the arbor — lay writhing on the ground shrieking 
for mercy. Some of them were very violent, and it took three 
stout men to hold each of them. They leaped up in the air, 
clapping their hands above their heads, and calling, " Mercy ! 
Mercy ! Glory be to God ! " etc. Some of them, in their 
paroxysms, tore their own clothes, and thinned the wool on the 
heads of those who were holding them. 

The regular service had now come to an end ; but the major- 



Il6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

ity of the audience stood around, singing over the prostrate 
forms of the "mourners." One by one the howling mourners 
became exhausted, and fell down on the ground groaning and 
struggling. Around each gathered a crowd of brethren and 
sisters, who sang some of their choruses, accompanied by gyra- 
tions of body, and clapping of hands. The air of most of these 
choruses had a strong flavor of tambourine and bones. We 
heard one hymn sung to the air of *' Camptown Races." The 
words are often meaningless, but the songs are sung with 
a force and enthusiasm that would make a deaf-mute howL 
The singing is considered a very effectual help in the conver- 
sion of the prostrate mourners, and usually continues until he 
or she experiences religion, and rises off the ground — clothed, 
not in sackcloth and ashes, but in leaves and dust — shouting, 
" Glory ! glory ! glory ! " 

Sometimes they are not converted under these ministrations ; 
but usually an hour's wriggling in the dust, with forty or fifty 
perspiring brethren and sisters crowding around them, and the 
singing of a dozen hymns of fifty verses each, is found to be an 
effectual means of grace. The following is a sample of one of 
the hymns heard : — 

" Come down, Gabriel ! blow de horn ; 
Call me home in de eariy morn ; 
Send de chariot down dis way : 
Come and take me home to stay. 

Chorus. 
" O angels ! meet me at de cross-roads, meet me ; 
Angels, meet me at de cross-roads, meet me ; 
Angels, meet on de cross-roads, meet me : 
Don't charge a sinner toll. 

" I's libed for months, and I's libed for years ; 
Can't get used to my weeping tears ; 
Lost my way on de road in sin : 

Wake up, angels ! pass me in. 

Chorus. 
*' Dem angels ain't got long to wait ; 
Dey's standing now at de golden gate : 
When we get dar on de todder shore, 
Dey'll go inside, and dey'll shut de door." 

Chorus. 



LOST IN THE WOODS. I17 

When the known words of a hymn run short, they frequently 
improvise. At these camp-meetings two-thirds of the day and 
a great part of the night are occupied with religious exercise. 
Only a few hours are allowed for sleep : the remainder of the 
time is devoted to watermelons. At night the grounds are 
lighted with lanterns hanging from the branches of the trees, 
and with pine-pitch fires kept constantly burning on altar-like 
platforms. As I look around on this scene, and see a man 
struggling on the ground, shouting, "Mercy, mercy!" while a 
circle of excited negroes, hand in hand, dance around him, 
singing their wild songs, with the fitful glare of the camp-fires 
lighting up the immediate surroundings, and the gloomy depth 
of the forest making an appropriate background to the picture, 
— I cannot help thinking of the ancestors of these people 
back in the depth of African jungles, of their miserable super- 
stitions, and of their dances around the victims prepared for 
human sacrifices ; and I wonder if the veil that separates the 
savage from the civilized Ethiopian is of much more enduring 
material than calico dresses, jean pants, and a questionable 
proprietary interest in the contents of the ballot-box. 

We staid at the camp-meeting until late in the night. We 
camped a slight distance from the camp-ground, and were up, 
had breakfast, and were all aboard, half an hour after sunrise. 
We lost our way ; and wandering around in search of some one 
to direct us, we found a house inhabited by a white man who 
looked as if he were suffering with the dry rot, and the effects 
of " fry " as a regular article of diet. We inquired of him the 
way to Columbus. 

** Just go round the fence thar, by the calf-pen, till you come 
to the road ; and then keep the main plain road (you can't 
miss it) till you come to a fork in the road. Keep the plainest 
trail till you come to a big live-oak standing a little to the 
right. Then to the left of that, you bear some to the south, 
and keep on the most travelled road straight to the crick. 
When you come to Smith's pasture, take the left — no, I 
believe it's the right : yes, the right hand — till you come to 
a fork in the road. One is the big Bastrop road : the other 
will take you right to Columbus. 



Il8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"No : thars no chance for you to get put out. It is a plain, 
straightforward road all the way. You can't mistake it, if you 
follow them thar directions ; but, when you cross the crick, be 
sure and leave the corn-field to your left." 

The doctor told him that there was no danger of us taking 
the corn-field with us : we really didn't need it ; and, as far as 
we were concerned, it would be left for the present. 

This pleasantry was lost on the sick-looking native. He did 
not look as if he would know the difference between a joke and 
a pterodactyl of the silurian period, if he were to meet them 
both in broad daylight. 

In the matter of furnishing verbose directions to enable a 
man to lose his way successfully, the native Texan has no 
equal. He tells you he came here " before the woods were 
burned." He claims to know every cow-path in the State. 
Distance does not daunt him. He will just as glibly give you 
directions as to the route between Austin and Presidio del 
Norte (seven hundred miles) as he will direct you how to pro- 
ceed from the court-house to the railroad-depot, situated on the 
frontier of the fifth ward ; and his directions, if carefully fol- 
lowed, will assist you in losing your way just as much in the 
one instance as in the other. 

The doctor claims, that it was the original ancestor of the 
native Texan who started the children of Israel when they left 
Egypt, and that it was his vague directions that caused them 
to wander forty years in the wilderness. 

The reason that the Texan's directions are so unsatisfactory 
is, that he assumes more than the circumstances warrant. He 
assumes that you know certain places and things, — that, as a 
stranger, of course you are ignorant of, — somewhat after the 
manner of the hotel-clerk in Houston, when I inquired of him 
as to the location of the post-office. He said, " Next door 
below Williams & Schwazenbergen's." 

" But where does Williams and — and the Dutchman live } " 
said I. 

" Why, you know No. 3's engine-house } It is right opposite 
to that." 

"But I don't know No. 3's engine-house." 



A BLAZED ROAD. II9 

"Well, then, go down as if you were going to the jail, and, a 
block this side of there, turn down in the direction of the high 
school. After you go, say, two blocks, you will find the post- 
office on the other side of the street." 

I hired a hack ; and after paying the driver his fare of half a 
dollar, and buying him a copy of the city directory, I got to the 
post-office. 

The doctor says, that, if he were to undertake to fall down a 
well according to directions received from a native Texan, he 
is satisfied he would lose his way before he could reach the 
bottom. 

What the people call roads in Texas are merely tracks made 
by wagon-wheels. They seldom show any improvement on 
what nature and wheeled vehicles made them. On sloping 
ground, where the soil is light, the roads wash in wet weather, 
forming ravines. One new track after another is made, parallel 
to the original, until the whole face of the hill is furrowed and 
scarred with dangerous gullies. 

In the timbered country, roads are made by simply cutting 
down trees, and leaving the stumps about six to twelve inches 
above the ground. These roads are seldom more than ten feet 
wide. 

There are notched roads and blazed roads. A notched road 
is one where the trees, at intervals on one or both sides of it, 
have several notches made in them with an axe, for the purpose 
of assuring the traveller that he is really on a road somewhere. 
A blazed road is the same, except that the trees are blazed with 
an axe, instead of being notched. These marks are used for 
about the same reason that the schoolboy makes the very 
necessary explanation to the picture he has drawn on the slate : 
"This is a man." The notches and blazed marks on the trees 
say plainly, "This is a road." Without them, you might mis- 
take it for the track of a tornado. 

On the prairie the traveller sometimes finds that a road gets 
less distinct as he proceeds. Gradually, from a broad and 
well-defined trail, it contracts to a twelve-inch path, and then 
fades away on the open plain, or spreads out into a dozen lesser 
trails, going in different directions. These roads are made by 



I20 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



cattle going to and returning from water, and are very bewil- 
dering to the inexperienced traveller. 

We did not find the ''main plain road" until the next day; 
but we kept on riding west, as we knew that our route lay due 
west. 




.^s>iA-'>^^^%,Al^ , ^ -^^^^AW^. 



THROWN. 



IN SEARCH OF WATER. 12 1 



CHAPTER X. 



_^^^^^p^m\p/^^^y^\ WERE out on the prairie, and were 
~^^^Svfe^p^^fel^^j^^) suffering from thirst. We had trav- 
' '':.^^^'"^'^-^';^-'^):-:'^i^^ " elled from six o'clock in the morning 
.' ^ ^ until one m the arternoon without 

having found any water. We h,ad not seen a human habitation 
since the evening before, and were despairing of finding one, 
when the doctor discovered a house in the distance. It was a 
small wooden structure, apparently about three miles off, — 
probably a section-house on the railway, or the ranch of some 
stockman. At any rate, the probabilities were, that there was 
a well there, and, as a consequence, water. Encouraged by the 
thought of a cooling draught of that best of all beverages pre- 
pared for thirsty humanity in the distillery of nature, we per- 
suaded our ponies to assume a more animated gait. 

Distances on the prairie are deceptive. An apparent stretch 
of a mile has a sinful way of lengthening itself out, until, when 
you get to the end of it, it has assumed the proportion of a 
sabbath-day's journey. Probably the clearness of the atmos- 
phere accounts for the phenomenon. The estimated three miles 
that intervened between us and the objective point we were 
riding to stretched out apparently to the very crack of doom, 
wherever that is. 

At last we reached the house, after riding at least five miles 
from where we first saw it. We found it inhabited by Mr. and 
Mrs. O'Lafferty, and a cheerful family of pigs. 

Mrs. O'Lafferty was a foreigner. • 

Mr. O'Lafferty was section boss of No. , on the G., H., & 

S. A. Railroad ; that is, he superintended the hands working 
on that section. 



122 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Mrs. O'Lafferty superintended Mr. O'Lafferty. 

Mr. O'Lafferty was a small man, gentle of speech, affluent of 
upper lip, and submissive in the presence of Mrs. O'Lafferty. 

Mrs. O'Lafferty was a female of fifty summers, spare of 
frame, voluble of tongue, and ignorant of punctuation. She 
spoke the English language with a foreign accent. She ignored 
commas, only threw in a semicolon when she had to pause for 
breath ; and her conversation never knew a period, except when 
she went to sleep. 

Mr. O'Lafferty's hair was arranged with careless grace in the 
cottage-eve style, and showed evidences of having been ampu- 
tated by a dull pair of scissors in the hands of Mrs. O'Lafferty. 

Mrs. O'Lafferty's hair was coiled in a classic knot on the 
back of her head, so tight that it suggested a reason for the 
corners of her mouth being drawn up in such close proximity 
to her ears. 

Mr. O'Lafferty wore corduroy breeches and No. lo brogans. 

Mrs. O'Lafferty wore the breeches, in a metaphorical sense, 
and, for the sake of coolness and economy, went barefooted. 

These parties lived in a rough box-house of two rooms beside 
the railroad track, and on a treeless prairie where their nearest 
neighbors were miles away. As we rode up to the door of the 
cabin, we met Mrs. O'Lafferty. 

*' Yis, sur : sure, an' yer welcome to a dhrink of wather, an' 
glory be to God we have plinty of that same. — The divil swape 
ye for pigs, can't ye kape out of the gintlemen's way.? — Jist 
hitch yer horses to that fence there. — Tim ! Tim ! bad cess to 
ye, yer always in the way whin yer not wanted ; an', whin yer 
naded, ye can't be found at all. Yer there, are you } Don't 
yer see the gintlemen want wather } — Walk in, sur, and sit 
down. — Draw a bucket of wather, an' don't be all day about 
it, now. — Wud yes like a cup of coffee.'* Sure, an* it's no 
throuble at all to git it ready. They all dhrink coffee in this 
country ; but I always like the tay best mesilf, not to spake of 
the coffee-grounds, that can't be good for the stummick. The 
tay has far more substance in it, though what we get here is 
nothing like what we used to hev in the ould country. 

" Ye don't say ! An' yes travelled through Ireland last year "i 



MR, O'LAFFERTY BURNED THE BISCUITS. 1 23 

Jist think of that, now ! An' did yes know any thing of the 
McGuires of Ballymacashel ? Sure, an' they were the divil's 
playboys, — always gettin' into some trouble, shootin' at land- 
lords, fightin' at fairs, and other divarsions. They were kins- 




ARRIVAL AT THE O'LAFFERTYS. 



folks to my ould man here ; but I niver had no more use for the 
likes of thim than the divil has for holy wather. Me mother 
(God be good to her !) was an O'Nale, of the ould stock of the 
red-handed O'Nales. I expect some day to — Mother o' Moses! 
if that ould rip hasn't gone and burned thim biscuits ! " The 



124 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" oiild rip" was Mr. O'Lafferty, who was filling a temporary en- 
gagement as assistant culinary mechanic. " I wish he would 
stay out on the road wid the men : he's always doin' some divil- 
ment when he's at home. Ah, yis ! he's a foine help to me, 
like Mrs. Murphy kept shop in New York; but I'll tache him to 
burn biscuits another time." 

Off to the kitchen went Mrs. O'Lafferty to superintend her 
conjugal yoke-fellow. From certain suggestive sounds that 
reached our ears, we suspect that she was teaching him, and 
that he was skirmishing. This was the dark side of Mr. 
O'Lafferty's life. Having adjusted matters in the kitchen, and 
before we had recovered from the first blast, she was again 
upon us with a fresh hurricane of words. Escape was hopeless. 
Our attempts to take part in the conversation were not suffi- 
cient to stem the flood of information and personal history that 
were hurled against us by this conversational cyclone. In one 
short hour we learned the price of eggs, and the best method 
of killing the cotton-worm ; we were informed as to the profits 
o£ keeping an " aiting " house, and the relative merits of lard 
and butter as a batter-cake lubricator ; we were furnished with 
data sufficient to enable us to write the biographies of all the 
O'Laffertys and O'Neils of six generations. 

It is currently reported that Mrs. O'Lafferty has corns on 
her tongue. I am of the opinion that this is a base slander, 
originating with the owner of some rival eating-house. Prob- 
ably, on an equally uncertain foundation was built the following 
story regarding this good lady : — 

Mrs. O'Lafferty bought her groceries of Mr. A in. Rich- 
mond. On one occasion she purchased a dozen boxes of 
matches. On attempting to use them at home, she found that 
none of the matches would ignite. To say that Mrs. O'Laffer- 
ty got hot on making this discovery, would be an understate- 
ment of fact. She nursed her wrath, and not only succeeded in 
keeping it warm, but in developing it, until, by the time she made 
her next visit to Richmond, it was at a white heat, and boiling 

over. Surging into Mr. A 's store, she slammed the matches 

down on the counter, and thus addressed the proprietor, — 

** What did ye take me for, that ye wint and palmed off on 



THE NORTHER. 1 25 

me old second-hand toothpicks like thim ? The divil a wan av 
them'll light at all." 

" I am surprised, madam, to hear it," said the urbane grocer : 
'' I am certain they are good matches, if they have not got 
damp. Let me show you." And, taking up one of the con- 
demned matches, he raised his leg, — after the manner of men, 
— and, giving the match a flip along the softest part of his 
anatomy, it ignited. ''See there, madam ! I told you " — 

*' Sure, an' I see ; but, the divil fly away wid ye, do ye sup- 
pose ivery time I have to light a fire I'll come all the way to 
Richmond to sthrike a match on the sate of your breeches "i " 

We enjoyed Mrs. O'Lafferty's coffee, although it had no milk 
in it ; and we appreciated the biscuits, although they had suf- 
fered at the hands of the inexperienced Tim, and looked as if 
he had sat on them. We felt much more comfortable, as the 
hospitable and kind-hearted Mrs. O'Lafferty's parting ''good 
luck to ye " followed us over the prairie, than we had felt for 
several days. As we travelled across the prairie, we saw great 
numbers of cattle dotted over the wide expanse ; and around 
the water-holes the skeleton of many a cow told the tale of 
dry seasons and wet northers. On some of these prairies all 
the water in the holes and gullies dries up during the heat of the 
summer ; and, as there are no running streams, the cattle have 
either to go to some other range where water can be found, or 
stay, and die of thirst. In the winter the northers are often 
fatal to cattle that are weak and old. 

The norther is a copious breeze that comes to Texas from 
the north. It is like the Assyrian who came down and caught 
the wolf in the fold, or the wolf that caught the Assyrian, 
whichever it was. What I mean to indicate is, that it comes 
suddenly and unexpectedly, but it does not stay long : in fact, it 
does not stop ajt all, except about long enough to take the roof 
off a barn, or turn an umbrella inside out. It is always in a 
hurry, and goes straight across the country. I do not know 
how high or how thick a norther is ; but an adult Texas norther 
is several hundred miles wide, and so long, that, at a go-as-you- 
please gait, it takes about forty-eight hours to pass a given 
point, and it sometimes carries the point along with it. 



126 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

There are two kinds of northers, — the wet and the dry ; and 
both are exceedingly cold. Tongue cannot tell, nor can pen 
express, how cold a norther feels to a man who gets up in the 
night, at his wife's suggestion, to see if he forgot to fasten 
down the dining-room window. The northers are really not so 
cold as they are supposed to be. The mercury seldom registers 
below twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The cold is as severe 
on the people subjected to it as a much more severe cold, 
measured by degrees, would be to a resident of a more north- 
ern clime. It is the contrast and sudden change that account 
for this fact. 

The following pictures, now in my mind's eye, will illustrate 
what I mean. A chromo representing in the foreground a man 
dressed in a linen suit. His shirt is open at the neck ; and he 
is sitting on a refrigerator, fanning himself with his sombrero. 
In the background a soda-water fountain, and in the middle- 
distance a perspiring negro waiter coming with an iced lemon- 
ade. We might call this picture "Yesterday in Texas." Next, 
the same man dressed in winter clothes, a buffalo robe on his 
shoulders, and a seal-skin cap with ear-flaps on his head. The 
man is sitting cooking his half-soles at a large wood-stove ; 
while the same waiter, with his teeth chattering at every pore, 
is bringing him an oyster-stew with red pepper in it. We may 
call this picture " To-day in Texas." 

Northers come into market about the end of October, 
although some years an early variety develop in September. 
Like the oyster, they are seasonable in all months that have an 
"r" in them. A stranger who has never seen a norther may 
easily recognize the first one when it comes to town. The 
stranger is sitting on the veranda, coatless and hatless. He is 
writing to his mother-in-law in Connecticut. He dates his 
letter, "San Antonio, Oct. ii;" and then he writes, "This 
is the most genial climate in the world, — the Italy of Amer- 
ica. I am glad that I came here. Just to think that you 
are shivering around a stove that only keeps you warm in 
spots, while I at the same time am enjoying balmy breezes 
freighted with the perfume of orange-blossoms ! The ther- 
mometer registers seventy-nine degrees in the shade. As 



YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY IN TEXAS. 



127 



I look out on the streets, I see the inhabitants dressed in sum- 
mer costume, seeking the shady side. I see the sun-burned 
descendant of the lordly Aztec presiding over a peripatetic 
candy emporium that he carries in front of himself on a 
wooden tray, while he shoos the flies off his stock with a paper 
fan. I see a swarthy child of sunny Italy discoursing music 
to an indolent and appreciative audience, while an African ape 
sittincr on his shoulders makes faces at the crowd. Are not 




YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY IN TEXAS. 



all these things in keeping with the calm serenity and quiet 
warmth of these semi-tropical surroundings t I regret that 
I did not bring lighter clothes. My ulster was a useless 
encumbrance." Then, while he goes on to tell of the fig-tree 
in the back-yard, and the bananas in the next lot, a cloud 
arises in the north, — a dark, inky cloud ; then a sultry calm 
succeeds the " balmy breeze," and a sort of electric or sulphur- 
ous smell takes the place of the "perfume of orange-blossoms." 
There is a rustling in the tree-tops, and he lays down his pen 



128 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

to go and look for his coat. When he comes back, he looks 
out, and sees the Mexican rushing into a pawn-shop' to pawn 
his confectionery establishment for money to buy a second- 
hand blanket. He sees the Italian, with his organ on his 
shoulder, and his monkey by the ear, hurrying to find shelter ; 
while clouds of dust, and a thirty-miles-an-hour wind, fresh 
from the north-pole, takes the place of the "calm serenity and 
quiet warmth " that he wrote about. Then he retires inside 
his ulster, orders a fire to be put in the stove, and spends the 
evening in amending his letter to his mother-in-law, and in 
blaspheming the Texas climate. 

The northers are very bracing in their effects, and do much 
to purify the air, and carry off all malarial and miasmatic influ- 
ences. The thermometer falls very rapidly during a norther, 
sometimes forty degrees in an hour. A man once told me 
that in Austin, Tex., he saw the thermometer fall three feet 
in two seconds — off a nail. 

At sundown we arrived at a place called East Bernard. 
East Bernard consists of a store, a stable, and a large veranda 
with two small rooms attached to it. . The old man who owned 
the place gave us some corn for our horses, and told us that he 
reckoned we could stay all night at his house. 

" Come over and sit in the store till the women-folks git 
supper ready," said our landlord. 

The store is the club-room of the neighborhood. A planter 
never buys a cow from another, or makes a trade, without going 
over to the store, there to perfect the transaction. The ratifi- 
cation of the contract is usually connected with a " Here's to 
you ! " Local usage requires that this formality should be 
gone through at the store. The young men who live within 
a radius of several miles meet here in the evenings, more espe- 
cially on Saturday evening. They roost around in uncomforta- 
ble attitudes on counters, flour-barrels, and nail-kegs ; and they 
discuss local matters in language tinged with profanity, and 
seasoned with the appellations of the Deity, while they treat 
each other to whiskey, beer, sardines, canned oysters, and 
other articles indigenous to the country store. 

All country stores are strangely alike. No genius has ever 



THE COUNTRY STORE. 



129 



invented a new kind of country store. No enterprising young 
merchant seems to have had the hardihood to attempt any inno- 
vation on the established style. The store we entered varied in 
no important particular from others of the same species, — dry- 
goods on one side, groceries on the other, and beverages in the 
rear ; while saddles, coils of rope, cans of kerosene, grindstones, 
axe-handles, and boxes of cheap boots, were scattered all over 
the place. Boards outside the door were covered with sten- 
cilled statements regarding the goods to be found inside. The 




H£ DIDNT BELIEVE IN A FUTURE STATE. 



inharmonious grouping of the articles thus advertised reminded 
me of a famous Scotch sign of the last century, on which was 
inscribed the legend, "Sold Here — Bibles and Bacon! Testa- 
ments and Treacle ! Godly Books and Gimlets ! " 

Our storekeeper was also postmaster. The post-office de- 
partment was on the left-hand side, close to the entrance, and 
apparently consisted of a weak-legged desk, covered on the 
back with patent axle-grease and yeast-powder advertisements, 
announcements of, sheriffs' sales, and biographies of strayed 
9 



130 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

horses ; of an ink-bottle, a used-up piece of blotting-paper, and 
a cat asleep on top of two undelivered postal-cards and a stale 
religious newspaper. 

We found five or six men of the cow-boy class in the store.' 
I have used the word "roost " to describe the manner in which 
these people assume a position of alleged rest in a store. It 
expresses their position more closely than any other term I 
could use. They perch on the highest object within reach, — a 
box, a barrel, or counter, — and draw their heels up on a level 
with the proper sitting-down part of their bodies. On the 
ground, around a camp-fire, they will sit in this same position for 
hours at a time, their hands clasped in front of their knees, and 
their knees clasped around their ears. 

When we entered, we found the boys listening to an argu- 
ment between little Luke Sneed and Tom Quinn, Luke was 
one of those human outrages vulgarly called a ** Smart Aleck.'' 
He sneered at religion, spoke of ministers of the gospel as 
"journeymen soul-savers," and was ambitious to be known as a 
sceptic. He "didn't believe nothing unless you could prove it, 
you know." His small brain, incapable of grasping a sublime 
idea or a generous thought, employed itself in questioning 
motives, criticising actions, and evolving specious arguments 
against every theory or statement advanced on any subject. 
He is one of a class that I have heard a good old preacher say 
often tempted him "to think that the Creator made them just 
to fill up with." Luke was denying the existence of a fire-and- 
brimstone hereafter, and his opponent was weakening under 
Luke's repeated requests that he should prove his assertions. 

"Nobody hain't been thar, you know," said Luke: "least- 
wise, we hain't no proof that they hev ; and it stands to reason, 
that, if thar was sech a place, the owner would let us know 
something about it." 

"You needn't tell me thar hain't no hell," said long Bill 
Staples : " you can bet your sweet life thar is, and don't you 
forgit it. It has been proved by experiment." 

" Experiment ! How } " cried several. 

"Well, didn't none of you ever hear of the agreement 'tween 
old Sam Delaney an' Pete White ? You see, it was jest before 



PETE WHITE'S GHOST 131 

the war. Pete, he was an infidel, or a Darwin, or somethins". 
and didn't believe in nary hereafter nor nothin'.. Old Sam, he 
was a Methody. They were great cronies, Pete and him. Both 
'of them liked their tods ; and many a time Pve seen them com- 
ing home from town in Sam's old buggy, when neither of them 
could have made out the difference between a Methody camp- 
meetin' and a Democratic barbecue. They used to argufy most 
powerful on religion and hell, and Henry Clay, and things ; 
and one day they made a bargain, as I have heard tell of many 
other fools doin', — a solemn compact, they call it, —that which- 
ever one died first was to come back, if such a thing was possi- 
ble, and reveal to the survivor, by some token, whether thar 
was, or was not, a hot future for the sinner. Pretty soon the 
war broke out. Sam Delaney was too old to go ; but Pete vol- 
unteered, and in a year he was colonel. It's a wonder he 
wasn't killed sooner, either with whiskey or Yankee bullets. 
He wasn't afraid of either. In a fight he was always in the 
front, a swearin' and rarin' like all possest ; and in camp he 
never let up on card-playin' and whiskey-drinkin'. One hot 
night in July, old man Delaney went to sleep outside on the 
gallery. He had been to town that day and sold his cotton. 
You see, the war didn't affect us much down this way, and 
people attended to their business much as usual. The old man 
had histed in a good load of forty-rod juice that day, and he 
was so tired when he got home that he jest threw himself 
down on the gallery and went to sleep two rows at a time. 
Just about midnight he Woke up, feelin' a sort o' chilliness 
creepin' all over him. Lookin' out by the fence, he saw a white 
object standin' at the gate. It gave the gate a push, and 
glided inside without makin' a particle of noise. Sam knew at 
once, as he told us afterwards, that it was the spirit of Pete 
White come to perform his part of the agreement. Then he 
wfshed he never had made any such fool contract. The spirit, 
all dressed in white, glided up close to him, stopped a minute, 
and, though he could not see it very well, in the dark, seemed 
to be looking kind o' mournfully at him. It moaned sort o' 
sorrowful, and moved off -slowly round the corner of the house. 
Next mornin' the old man looked very gloomy and solemn. 



132 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

He told his family at breakfast that Pete White died the pre- 
vious night at twelve o'clock. They laughed at him ; for they 
knew that Col. White was more than a thousand miles away, 
fightin' the Yankees. Sure enough, though, when we got the 
news of the battle of Goose Creek, — news travelled slow in 
Texas them days : it was a month afterwards 'fore we heard of 
it through Bill Young, who was home on a furlough, — we 
learned that very night that old man Delaney saw the colonel's 
spirit " — 

" The colonel got killed, I reckon ; but what does that 
prove .'' " sneered little Luke Sneed. 

*' Don't be so all-fired premature, young man : let me finish 
my story," said Bill Staples. He continued, " That very night, 
as was proved afterwards, that Delaney saw the ghost, and 
jest at twelve o'clock. Col. White was a settin' in his tent play- 
in' cards with his officers. The Yanks were throwin' an occa- 
sional shell into camp. The way that they remembered the 
exact time afterwards was, that the guards were changed at 
twelve o'clock; and, just as the guards war comin' in off duty, 
the captain, who was playin' with Col. White, laid down four 
kings. The colonel had four aces, and levied on the whole pot 
a thousand dollars, I heard say. Mighty curious coincident, to 
say the least of it, wasn't it, now .-* " 

''Well," said Luke. 

''Well," repHed Bill : "that's all." 

" But wasn't the colonel killed, or didn't he die that night 1 " 
inquired Luke. 

"Hell, no!" said Bill: "he's livin' yet, down in DeWitt 
County, as hearty as a buck." 

" But how about the ghost } " 

" Oh, the ghost ! I don't know nothing 'bout him, of my 
own knowledge ; but the boys did say as Jim Carson's old white 
cow broke into Delaney's garden and chawed over most of his 
cabbage patch, the night he saw the ghost." 

" The drinks are on you, Luke," said the crowd ; and Luke 
acquiesced, and "set 'em up" all round. 



THE MAN, DIRKS, 



133 



CHAPTER XI 




SUPPER we sat on the gallery, and 
absorbed a great deal of information 
about cattle and cattle-men. From 
what was said, we were led to believe 
that the majority of the people in the 
county lived by stealing cattle, and 
the balance died or went to the peni- 
tentiary by the same means. It is 
very easy to get killed in Texas : steal 
a yearling, and you will be accommo- 
dated with a rope and a live-oak limb. Contradict a native, or 
dispute the accuracy of his statement, and the coroner's jury 
will return the verdict, " Died from the effects of calling Mr. 

a liar ! " There is no better place than Texas for a man 

who wants to get killed or hung ; but if he wants to get hung 
in a legitimate way, by a regularly ordained sheriff, Texas is 
not a good country for that class of immigrant. The law is very 
exacting as to the qualifications of candidates for the gallows. 
If the few who have been elected are to be believed, they are 
the only people who are positively certain of securing a home 
in the mansions of light. 

There was a man — we shall call him Dirks — who aspired 
after a higher and better life beyond the grave. He did not 
care to trust to the ordinary means of securing that desidera- 
tum. He wanted to be sure about the hereafter : so he con- 
cluded to get hung. He knew that the only way he could get 
hung in the orthodox manner, and have the sympathy of the 
citizens, and a convoy of angels to carry him off after the cer- 



134 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 










DIRKS. 



emony, was to get convicted of murder in the first degree. 
Without any provocation, he dehberately destroyed an unoffend- 
ing man with a shotgun. He made no effort to escape, but 
hunted up the sheriff, and begged to be taken into custody, 
for fear he, the murderer, might change his mind, and not want 
to go to heaven after all ; but the sheriff said he knew the 

murderer to be a gentleman 
who would not run away. He 
so earnestly desired to go to 
heaven, where he could see 
Bill Longley, Brown Bowen, 
and other saints who had gone 
before, that he awaited his 
trial and conviction with im- 
patience. The fact is, that 
Dirks was a little out of his 
mind anyhow. The day for 
the trial arrived. In the mean 
time the local press had excited much sympathy for Dirks by 
telling what a kind-hearted man he was, how he killed an Indian 
in 1823, what a perfect gentleman he was, and all that sort of 
thing. As there was no bad feeling between the parties, there 
could, of course, be no malice ; and, where there was no malice 
aforethought, there could be no murder. Hence it was, that, 
before the trial came off, about half the community did not 
really believe that there had been any murder committed at 
all. This will also explain why there was so much sympathy 
for Dirks. In fact, some thought it was a shame to try him. 
In order to gain favor with the public, several prominent law- 
yers, in spite of Dirks's protest, volunteered to defend him. 
But Dirks, knowing how atrocious the murder was, had no fear 
of being acquitted. He still yearned for a JDlissful future. He 
would say to himself, while thinking over the matter, "I can't 
see how good citizens, who have regard for their own families 
and for the welfare of the public, — I can't see how it is possi- 
ble for them to help finding me guilty. Then the sheriff will 
hang me up ; and in a moment more I will be in heaven, in Bill 
Longley's bosom." 



THE ALLEGATA AND THE PROBATA. 



135 



He was sadly disappointed, however. He reckoned without 
his lawyers. When the trial came off, they showed that Dirks 
never had any ill feeling against the deceased, and it was there- 
fore impossible for him to have killed him with malice afore- 
thought. They showed, too, that the deceased was not killed 
with malice aforethought, but with a shotgun, which made a 
fatal variance between the allegata and the probata ; but the 
judge decided otherwise, overruling the motion to quash the 
indictment on this ground. 

"Now," thought Dirks, "I reckon I'm safe for heaven." But 
his lawyers cross-examined and bulldozed the witnesses for the 
State, until it appeared as plain as day that the deceased shot 
himself accidentally. Dirks's heart sank within him. His 
worst fears were realized. And the jury did acquit him with- 
out leaving the jury-box. Dirks was discharged from custody, 
and that night he was serenaded. His lawyers were thanked 
by hundreds of citizens with tears in their eyes. The only 
sad man was Dirks himself. He went home, and brooded over 
his hard luck for a day or two. Then he loaded up his old duck- 
gun, and sauntered down the road. He met a country physi- 
cian of his acquaintance ; and, before the doctor had time to 
say, " Howdy, Dirks ! " he 
turned the old muzzle-loader 
loose, and killed the doctor. 
Dirks gave himself up cheer- 
fully. Court was in session, 
and the case was tried at 
once. He would not have 
any lawyers, but the judge 
appointed two to defend him. 
Witnesses were produced by 
the counsel for the defence, 
who proved that there was found on the doctor's person a 
deadly weapon of peculiar and puzzling construction ; and two 
of the witnesses testified that they heard the doctor say to Dirks, 
some four weeks before the murder, " Whenever you get sick, 
call on me, and I will straighten you out." This, the lawyers 
agreed, could only bear one construction : it was evidently a 




SHOOTING THE DOCTOR. 



136 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



threat. They claimed that it could be construed in no other 
way: therefore Dirks was justified in shooting the doctor on 
sight. The jury took the same view of it, and Dirks was again 
acquitted. He was disappointed, but not cast down. He had 
read of Robert Bruce being encouraged by observing the per- 
severance of a spider that made six futile attempts to swing 
from one rafter to another, and, trying again, succeeded the 
seventh time. He tried again. He killed a hackman with a 
knife. He was determined not to be acquitted again : so he 
hired two young lawyers to defend him. Neither of the law- 
yers had ever had a case before, and they did not look as if 

they knew any thing anyhow. They 
had the case continued. Next term 
they made out affidavits showing ab- 
sence of material witnesses, and had 
it continued again. When the case 
came up, they got a change of venue. 
Then it was continued once more 
because one of the lawyers was con- 
fined to his room, nursing a black 
eye. This exasperated Dirks very 
much, but he could not help him- 
self. At last the case was tried ; and 
thirteen credible witnesses swore, 
that, at the time the murder was 
committed. Dirks was forty - five 
miles away, engaged in reading Baxter's ''Saints' Rest." He 
was again, in the most inhospitable manner, turned out of jail, 
— acquitted. 

He went and' bought five dollars' worth of strychnine, carried 
it home, and gave it to his cook. The cook was prompt in 
dying, and Dirks was arrested. The druggist proved that 
Dirks bought the poison. The cook's nephew swore that he 
saw the prisoner put it in the soup. The defence proved by 
experts that five cents' worth of strychnine would have killed 
the cook dead enough for all practical purposes. The prisoner 
used five dollars' worth : therefore the jury said he was insane. 
Once more he was cast out on a cold and unfeeling world. 




POISON. 



A DEFECTIVE INDICTMENT. 137 

He kept on reading about the pearly gates of the New Jeru- 
salem, how there was no sickness there (Dirks suffered from 
rheumatism) ; but Bill Longley and all the other angels were 
flying about, with harps and six-shooters in their hands : so he 
yearned more than ever to fly away, and be at rest. He could 
get hung at any time by stealing a ten-dollar cow-pony : but he 
had noticed that those fellows who were strung up by a mob 
died without hope ; that it was only the murderer who was hung 
according to law who was certain of a ''home over there." 

He resolved to fix it so that there would be no mistake next 
time. He bribed a man to petition to have him put in the luna- 
tic-asylum as of unsound mind. The county court appointed a 
jury, and Dirks was brought before it. Of course they decided 
that he was perfectly sane, and he was released from custody. 
Dirks was delighted: he chuckled all over. ^ ''Next time the 
lawyers would have proved I was not responsible, being of un- 
sound mind ; but, now that I have been officially declared all 
right, they can't save my neck." 

He went home, and loaded up his shotgun, and put it in a cor- 
ner. Then he cogitated long' 
and profoundly. " To get my- 
self convicted," he said to 
himself, " I'll have to murder 
some man whom everybody 
loves, admires, venerates, — 
some man whose death will 
create an aching void in soci- 
ety for the next century." 

Just then a young man, 
with a lead-pencil and a smile, 

, , , , ^ SHOOTIN3 REPORTER. 

came in, and said, " 1 want to 

interview you, Col. Dirks, about " — when Dirks reached out, 

and blew him into fiddle-strings with his shotgun. 

" Dirks has had another misfortune," was the universal com- 
ment ; but this time, by some inexplicable combination of cir- 
cumstances, he was convicted of murder in the first degree. 
When the verdict was announced, he shook hands with each 
juryman, and, with real tears of gratitude in his eyes, thanked 




138 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 




IN JAIL. 



them, and called them his benefactors. Then he gave himself 
up to singing "The Sweet By-and-By," "Shall We Gather 
at the River?" and hymns of that class; for the judge had 
yielded to his request that he be hung inside a week and the 
jail-yard. And when the young ladies visited him in jail, and 
brought him flowers every day, he felt happy ; because he knew 

that only atrocious murder- 
ers, who were sure of heaven, 
were treated in that way. 

The happy moment had 
arrived. The instrument of 
death loomed up above a 
** vast sea of upturned 
faces," as newspaper re- 
: porters put it. A silence 
came over the unnumbered 
multitude. The doomed 
man ascended the scaffold, leaning on the arm of the sheriff, 
and accompanied by several clergymen. The sheriff, with a 
husky voice, read the death-warrant, after which, one of the 
condemned man's spiritual advisers offered up a touching 
prayer. The sheriff asked the doomed man if he wanted to 
say any thing. He did. It was just like all the last speeches 
of condemned murderers, as reported in the papers. In a few 
moments more he would be in heaven, he said, with a harp in 
his hand, singing hymns of triumph. He bade the crowd fare- 
well. He never expected to see them any more, unless, of 
course, like him, they would be smart enough to secure a con- 
viction of murder in the first degree. The sheriff adjusted the 
cap, and placed his hand on the lever, when his attention was 
attracted by a commotion in the crowd. A man on horseback 
was waving a prepaid telegram over his head. 

" Hurrah ! Pardon from the governor ! Cut the ropes ! " 
were the cries that reached the agonized ears of Dirks and 
the sheriff. " Fooled again " were the only words he uttered, 
as the crowd carried him in triumph to a saloon. 

He left Texas as soon as he could. He said he wanted to 
move to a civilized country, where some consideration was 



THE TARANTULA. 1 39 

shown a poor man who was trying to get to heaven. He 
changed his name to Muldoon, went to Pennsylvania, and was 
one of the Molly Maguires who were hung there some years 
ago. He found in Pennsylvania that which his own State had 
so persistently refused to grant him in spite of all his earnest 
efforts. 

Some two or three miles from East Bernard, we came to a 
very inviting place to camp, — an island of trees in a sea of 
prairie. Although it was yet early, not more than ten o'clock 
in the forenoon, we concluded to rest there, and cook dinner. 
On a piece of dead wood close by was a hairy-looking object. 
Its body was about the size of a walnut. Its legs,* eight in 
number, radiating from the body, were also covered with short 
hair, or spikes. It looked like a spider from Brobdingnag. Its 
body and legs would cover a space almost as l^rge as the palm 
of a man's hand, and it was altogether as ugly-looking an in- 
sect as I had ever seen. This was the "dreaded tarantula," — 
an insect that has been more slandered than any other living 
thing ; an unobtrusive spider that attends to its own business, 
and seems to have no desire to push itself into notice ; an insect 
of surprising taste and ingenuity in the matter of architecture 
and household adornment. Its nest is the most ingenious of all 
ingenious things. It is a subterranean abode, about the size of a 
coffee-cup, lined with some material as fine and glossy as white 
satin. At the surface of the ground is a small opening, into 
which fits a door made of sand and gravel glued together with 
some gummy fluid, and lined with the same satin material as 
the nest. The door opens and shuts on hinges made of many 
strands of a silken sort of thread. 

When the tarantula goes out into the world, closing the door, 
and pocketing the key to his night-latch, the sharpest eye could 
not detect the nest or its entrance ; for the outside of the door 
is formed of sand and gravel that looks exactly like the sur- 
rounding soil. I had long been misled regarding the habits of 
the tarantula. I had labored under the impression that it was 
a vagabond, a tramp among insects, roaming about in quest of 
a loose trouser-leg to crawl up, when the fact is, that it has a 
fixed place of abode, — fixed, so to speak, in the highest style 



140 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



of insect art. The tarantula is a spider of strict business 
habits, not speculative or rash by any means, but rather cau- 
tious and conservative. He never attacks an insect lareer 
than himself, unless it happens to be dead. When the sun 
goes down, he saunters out, and leisurely proceeds to prey on 
dissipated ants and belated tumble-bugs, that have heedlessly 
wandered from the paternal domicile. His nocturnal raids, 
and the fact that he sleeps all day, have prejudiced against him 
those hoary-headed people who take a wicked pleasure in cor- 




TARANTULA (LIFESI2E^ 



nering their sons and clerks, and hurling busy-bee and early- 
worm proverbs at them before breakfast. But the prejudices 
of these old fogies influence the tarantula but little ; for those 
who know him best — the frontier Indian, the horse-thief, and 
the Mexican raider — have learned to appreciate him, and 
show their appreciation of his wisdom by adopting his mode of 
life, and considering it worthy of imitation. The most perfect 
have their faults, however ; and the tarantula is no exception. 
When insulted or injured in any way, — sat down upon, for in- 
stance, — he will bite the first soft place he can find, exuding 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 141 

a vicious substance said to be as fatal as the poison of a rattle- 
snake or the effects of frontier whiskey. I think this is an- 
other slander, for I have never met a man who was fatally 
bitten by a tarantula. ''Tarantula-juice" is a favorite appella- 
tion in Texas for the worst kind of whiskey, and probably on 
the principle that "a hair of the dog," etc., whiskey is the only 
antidote successfully used in cases of tarantula bite. I have 
heard it stated, — I give the statement for what it is worth, 
probably about five cents on the dollar, — that an old Indian 
who lived on the Nueces loved the antidote so much, that he 
carried around a tame tarantula, made it convenient to get 
bitten close to a grocery, exhibited the tarantula as proof, and 
howled around until he was gratuitously irrigated with whiskey 
by the humane storekeeper. 

We had shot some quails in the morning. With these and 
coffee and corn-bread for dinner, we fared sumptuously. 

What peculiar influences on the memory has the faculty of 
smell ! How powerful in recalling the time and circumstances 
with which it was first associated is music ! Strange that a 
familiar smell or a well-known sound should call up from some 
cobwebbed corner of the memory, and place before the mind's 
eye, scenes, places, persons, or circumstances which had seemed 
entirely swept out of the mental storehouse, but which at one 
time must have been in some way connected with the cause of 
the phenomenon ! This, too, without any effort to remember, — 
an involuntary reminiscence forced into notice. Sometimes 
we can detect the connection : often it is impossible to do so. 
We have the effect, and we know the cause ; but why that 
cause should produce such an effect is the mystery. For in- 
stance : when at the breakfast-table I break an Q,gg that missed 
being a chicken by, say, ten days, I invariably think of a cer- 
tain geometrical problem. Why a stale ^gg should suggest 
the problem of describing an equilateral triangle on a given 
finite straight line, transcends my power of mental analyzation, 
as they say in Boston. My failure to understand the reason, 
merely arises from being unable to remember the circumstances 
attending the first conjunction m my mind of two such widely 
different things as an over-ripe ^gg and a problem. Often, 



142 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

however, we can in such cases trace out the connection. There 
is a certain tune, — I am incHned to think it is the identical one 
that caused the demise of the ancient cow, — whenever I hear it 
played on a piano, there arise before me the forms of three old 
maids ; and the prominent features of several months spent in 
their saturnine and sedative society come up out of the long 
ago, and flit, panorama-like, across the stretch of my mental 
vision. Each funereal note resurrects some additional incident 
of the bygone time when this tune was new every morning, and 
renewed every evening. 

Many years ago, and several thousand miles east of the pres- 
ent geographical position of these presents, I boarded with 
three most estimable ladies, who, having retired trophyless 
from the hunting-grounds of matrimony, and located on the 
bleak wastes of celibacy, employed all their time and energy in 
pitying their mated contemporaries, collecting money for the 
heathen, and teaching music. My bedroom was situated above 
the room in which the most sear and yellow-leafed one of the 
trio taught the five-finger exercise to the incipient belles of 
the town on a jingling piano. Snugly ensconced between the 
sheets on a winter's morning, enjoying the "balmy," and "re- 
gardless of the voice of the morning," I would be awakened, at 
what Dick Swiveller's friend would call " an everlastingly early 
hour," by the blue-nosed pupils and the snappish voice of 
the teacher. The maddening monotony of the exercises of the 
younger pupils was varied by the execution of the cow-killing 
tune by the more advanced pupils. Shades of Orpheus ! how 
I anathematized that old parlor grand ! How much quiet pro- 
fanity that rheumatic instrument caused, I shudder to think of. 
Since those days were, a decade of a more or less eventful life 
has intervened ; and yet a peculiar combination of sounds has 
power to vivify the dead past, and produce a train of thought 
that carries me back to the days when whiskers were a dream 
of the future, and individual responsibility but a fond ambition. 
So it was that a queer association of ideas, arising out of the 
smell of the broiling quails, as the doctor cooked them on a 
bright wood fire, brought to my mind the incidents that oc- 
curred many years ago, and which I shall now relate. 



ON AN IRISH MOUNTAIN. 



H3 



On a bright frosty morning, I started for a day's coursing 
on one of the Antrim Mountains, on the north-east coast of 
Ireland. I was accompanied by four young men, six grey- 
hounds, a keeper, two barefooted boys, a demijohn, and a lunch- 
basket. We had slept the night before m a rural inn, situated 
in the picturesque valley of Glenshesk, at the foot of a moun- 
tain called Knocklayde. The mountain slopes up from the 
water's edge to a height of two thousand feet above the level 
of the sea. After walking about a mile, we began to leave the 
farms behind us, and to climb the steep side of the heather-clad 
hill. We reached the top about eleven o'clock, having coursed 
and caught three hares on the way up. 

As we stood on a level plateau on the summit of the mountain, 
and looked around, one of the most beautiful views that it was 
ever my good fortune to see, met our eyes. Apparently at our 
feet, two thousand feet below, the sea, calm and glistening in 
the bright sunlight, stretched away on the north and east to the 
far-off horizon. Behind us ranges of hills, brown with heather 
in the foreground, and blue in the distance, towered up, their 
summits concealed in the ever-changing and moving clouds ; 
to the left, the bold and rugged coast-line, with its adamantine 
breastwork of lime and basalt ; over there, the Giant's Cause- 
way ; and beyond, the bleak hills of Donegal; to the right, 
across the channel, the Highlands of "Caledonia, stern and 
wild ; " all around us, the home of poetic legend, fairy-tale, 
and heroic romance, — the scene of fierce conflicts and bloody 
battles in the feudal times, and of wild political excitement in 
later days. * 

While we sat drinking in the beauties of our surroundings 
and the contents of the demijohn, the old keeper entertained 
us with tales of the heroic age, made sworn statements regard- 
ing his personal acquaintance with a banshee, and gave us short 
biographical sketches of all the prominent families who had 
lived in the north of Ireland from the fourteenth century down 
to date, besides confiding to us a personal grievance connected 
with the bewitching of his favorite setter by his mother-in-law, 
who possessed the evil eye. 

Old Tim, as he was called, was an extraordinary character. 



144 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



Wind him up with whiskey, and he would run for twenty-four 
hours without stopping, grinding out fairy-tales, marvellous lies, 
and ghostly legends, by the rod. From where we stood, we could 
see, as he pointed them out to us, the ruins of one of the old 
round towers built by the ancient Druids, and still haunted by 
the restless souls of the fire-worshippers, as Tim affirmed ; the 
shattered walls of the monastery of Bona Margy, where rests 
all that is mortal of the Lords of the Isles, and their descend- 
ants the Earls of An- 
trim ; the site of the 
castle on the island 
of Rathlin, where 
Robert Bruce ref- 
uged, haunted ; the 
cairn built on the 
spot where the great 
McQuillan murdered 
the equally terrific 
McDonnell, haunted 
by both parties. 
Ghostly stories and 
stupendous lies were 
told by Tim about all 
these places and per- 
sons, especially about 
these Earls of An- 
trim, who, we must 
conclude, were a bad 
lot, and very restless 
in their graves. One of these old chiefs, — now in the haunting 
business some two hundred years, — when he was alive, stole 
all the cattle belonging to a Neighboring Chief, sold them, and, 
with the money thus obtained, hired a band of foreign minions 
to assassinate the Neighboring Chief in his bed, and burn up 
his castle. They earned their money ; and the spirit of the 
Neighboring Chief, with a retinue of bovine ghosts in attend- 
ance, to this day haunts the spot where his castle formerly 
stood. The old Earl lived many years after this murder ; but 




TIWl THE GAMEKEEPER. 



THE WHITE HARE. 1 45 

his sleep was broken, and it was noticed that he seemed to 
suffer from terrible mental trouble, besides being afflicted with 
evident remorse of conscience and the barber's itch. One day, 
as he was coursing on this very mountain side, his dogs started 
a white hare. It is well known, that the sight of a white hare 
always precedes an immediate and violent death to the party 
seeing it. The Earl did not believe these omens and warnings, 
and he encouraged the dogs in their pursuit of the hare. In 
his eagerness to follow the chase, he became separated from 
his retainers and servants, a mist came down on the mountain, 
and he was lost. He did not know the path, or the way back 
to the castle. Night came on, and he took shelter in a deserted 
house. "You see the tops av the chimneys way down there 
now," said Tim. '* It was wanst a fort built by wan av the 
McQuillans, — a divil av a fellow, who used to take whiskey in 
his tay, and raise the divil when he had a mind, I've heerd 
tell." 

The Earl was compelled to stay there all night. He is some- 
where around there yet ; for about the midnight hour there 
arose out of the bowels of the earth the spirit of the Neighbor- 
ing Chief and the ghosts of the retainers, with the spirits of the 
stolen cattle. They caught the Earl ; and, although he begged 
for mercy, they heeded not, but carved him into small pieces, 
and boiled him in an immense caldron prepared for the occasion. 
In this manner died the ninth Earl of Antrim, as we were as- 
sured by Tim, who, according to his own statement, "niver 
towld a thing but the God's truth " in the whole course of his life. 

While being entertained by narratives of this ghostly char- 
acter, a mist surrounded us, — a mist so thick that we could not 
see an object five paces distant. Some idea can be formed of 
the density of the mist, when we were able to cut out chunks ' 
of it with our hunting-knives, and use it to dilute the too strong 
whiskey which Tim had furnished. This may be hard to believe, 
but it is as true as any other part of this narrative. In a few 
minutes the mist, or cloud, descended below us, and the sun- 
light poured down once more. All beneath was a vast ocean 
of fleecy clouds, moving around in an aimless turmoil. We 
seemed to be standing on a small island, — a floating island, 



146 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

lost in the immensity of space. There was a weird influence 
in the scene, heightened in its effects on us by the tales of the 
ghost and goblin that Tim was disburdening himself of, and by 
the sight of the gigantic shadow of the aforesaid Tim cast on 
the surface of the clouds below us. It was the shadow, appar- 
ently, of a man seventy-five miles long, gnawing at a piece of 
cheese about the size of Rhode Island. The scene was so 
strange and beautiful that we lingered there on the top of the 
mountain until the sun sank so low that our shadows were on 
a scale of about five miles to the inch. Regretting that the 
decline of day and of the contents of our demijohn compelled 
us to leave, we slowly descended the mountain. When half 
way down, with the mist thick around us, suddenly, from a peat- 
bank at our feet, there started a white hare. Tim crossed him- 
self, and called on us to " howld the dogs, an' let the crature 
go, or it will be bad luck that will come to some av us this day. 
It's a warnin', God be good to us ! " Regardless of Tim's warn- 
ing, we plunged into the mist, slipping two of the dogs in pur- 
suit of the hare. Hare and dogs were soon out of sight. In 
my eagerness to get a good view of the strange and ominous 
animal, I ran ahead of the party. Soon I found myself alone. 
I stopped to listen. The voices of my friends sounded strangely 
on the heights above, then gradually died away. I could hear 
nothing. I could not see objects farther than a few feet from 
where I stood, and I realized that I was lost in the mists of the 
mountains. I continued my course downward, hoping to reach 
the valley and some farmhouse before nightfall. Just as it was 
becoming too dark to proceed farther with safety, on account of 
the danger of falling into one of the many ravines, I stepped 
suddenly right up against a house. My joy at sight of what I 
• at first supposed to be a farmhouse was short-lived ; for I soon 
discovered that the building was an ancient ruin, and the very 
one described by Tim in the morning as the place where the 
haunted Earl of Antrim was boiled by the ghosts of his mur- 
dered victims. I was not superstitious, — that is, not very ; 
yet I felt a little queer when I thought of the white hare, and 
the sudden death it foreboded. 

The mist was blowing away, but the night was chilly. I 




IN THE RUINS Or AN IRISH CASTLE. 



LOST IN THE MISTS OF THE MOUNTAIN. 1 47 

decided to stay there for a few hours until the moon would rise. 
Climbing over a stack of fallen masonry, I stepped down into 
what must have been the dining-room, or probably the kitchen, 
of an old-time chief's house. The floor above and the roof 
were gone. Loop-hole windows high up in the wall were half 
filled with dead leaves and jackdaws' nests. Ivy was growing 
all over the inside of the eastern wall. An immense fireplace, 
with a large hearthstone, was suggestive of the hospitality of 
the days of yore, and, I shuddered to think, also of the cooking 
of' the body of the murderous old earl. I lighted a fire of dead 
wood in the middle of this enclosure, and lay down beside it on 
the grass-grown floor. Soon I was asleep. I know not how 
long I slept ; but I awoke suddenly with a cold chill along my 
spine, and a confused idea in my mind that I had been dream- 
ing a complicated dream, wherein I had a Graeco-Roman wres- 
tling-match with a banshee, and a game of seven-up for the 
cigars with the ghost of Finn McCool, the reputed architect 
of the Giant's Causeway. The mist was gone, the moon was 
shining brightly in my face, an owl was hooting on a broken 
cornice above, and a fragrant smell of something being cooked 
— and which I recognized as broiled quail — pervaded the at- 
mosphere. As I lay there, wondering by what extraordinary 
means broiled quail could reach that deserted spot, in the 
shadow of the hearth, as my eyes got accustomed to the gloom, 
I saw the great wide hearthstone slowly rise up, as if raised by 
a ghostly jackscrew. Then it turned on its side, and sank down 
in the earth out of sight. There was a rumbling sound, and 
then there arose, silently and slowly, out of the yawning chasm, 
a huge copper caldro7t. At sight of it I began to realize how 
wicked it was to have told all the lies I did when I was a boy, 
how sinful I had been in my base-ball days, and how unprepared 
I now was to — to be boiled. The hair curdled in my veins, 
and Sunday-school texts flashed before my eyes, as the great 
copper pot was noiselessly placed on the edge of the hole. 
Then, from out of the earth, arose the head and shoulders of a 
grim and ghastly bald-headed man ; and 

" Thrice from the cavern's darksome womb 
His groaning voice arose." 



148 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



It might have been the ghost of the Neighboring Chief before 
alluded to, but I did not wait for an introduction. I broke the 
tumultuous silence with a yell, as I passed out of the doorway, 
and, clearing a pile of rubbish with one bound, I went howling 
down the mountain, and never stopped until I came to the sea 
and to a fisherman's hut, where I rested till daybreak. 

They were arrested by the revenue-officers two weeks after- 
wards, the copper still confiscated, and three of the moonshiners 
were heavely fined. 

I have never smelled broiled quail since, that I do not think 
of the events of that night, and what a mercy it was that I did 
not break my neck as I rushed down the mountain-side. 




EAGLE LAKE, 149 



CHAPTER XII. 




ARRIVED at a place called Eagle Lake 
late at night. Eagle Lake is a small 
place, probably one hundred and fifty in- 
habitants. We found the usual corn- 
bread-and-coffee sort of a hotel, the same 
style of dilapidated stable for our horses, and apparently the 
same identical hide-bottomed chairs that are to be found in 
every little town in Texas. But we were tired and hungry, 
and enjoyed the accommodations and refreshments that the 
place afforded. The chairs were a comfortable change from 
the saddle, and the coffee was more palatable than the warm 
water we found on the prairie. We determined to stay and 
rest at Eagle Lake for a few days. There was a small lake 
near town, and the fishing was said to be good. I did not 
indulge in the "solitary vice," as Byron calls it : but the doc- 
tor wanted to catch some fish ; and I — well, I wanted to lie in 
the shade, and say smart things at the doctor's expense. 

We were both assigned to one room. It was about eight 
feet by ten, and furnished in a frugal manner with one bed, one 
chair, a solitary nail to hang our clothes on, and a tin basin on 
an old soap-box in the corner. The tin wash-basin w'as placed 
there more in the way of an ornament, and as a concession to 
fashion in the matter of bedroom decoration, than for use ; for 
we were expected to wash our faces in the morning on the 
front-gallery, opening on the street, where, on a shelf, there 
was another tin basin, a bucket of water, and a piece of brown 
soap in an old sardine-box, and on a roller hung an endless 



I50 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



and very dirty towel. The partition-walls of the room were 
constructed of pine boards, neither painted, papered, nor planed. 
The boards had shrunk, leaving large cracks ; and we could 
hear the least sound in the next room as plainly as if there had 
been no wall. I had just found an end of the pillow that had 
neither cobble-stones nor old scrap iron in it, when I was 
startled by something sitting down in the next room. It sat 
down, whatever it was, with such enthusiasm that the windows 
rattled, and the dust fell from the ceiling in my eyes. Our 

landlord was a very enter- 
prising young man. He told 
us how he had come to Texas 
without a cent, and how he 
had prospered until he now 
owned the hotel, although 
there was a heavy mortgage 
on it. When I heard the 
noise at first, I thought that 
the landlord had been fooling 
with the mortgage, — trying 
to lift it perhaps, — and had 
dropped it ; but in a moment 
I learn the real cause of the 
noise. It is the Jew drum- 
mer, who made himself so ab- 
surd at supper, talking about 
the "gwality off dem goots." 
He occupies the next room, 
and he has just come in and 
sat down. He soliloquizes, '' Mine Gott ! vat a schmall ped ish 
dot ! " Now he is taking off his boots, and we can hear him 
swear. The doctor expresses pleasure in knowing that the 
Israelite suffers from corns. When he gets his boots off, 
he dumps them in a corner with force enough to shake 
the sign off the front of the house, and, going to the door, 
shouts, — 

" Meester Landlord ! Meester Landlord ! " 
" Yes, sir." 




THE DRUMMER. 



THE DRUMMER. I^I 

" Gan I haff some ink ? I vant to write a leedle pefore I ^o 
to ped." 

He gets the ink ; and he scratches and scratches for half an 
hour, probably telling his '' house " about '' dot gustomer vat did 
not think der gwality of dose goots vas so mootch as dot samble." 

Then he calls, " Meester Landlord ! Meester Landlord ! " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Haff you got some daily bapers ? I vant to read a leedle 
pefore I go to ped." 

The landlord brings him a paper, and we can hear him fold 
it and smooth it out. It rustles and crackles in the most irri- 
tating manner. It takes him about half an hour to finish read- 
ing the paper, and once or twice he groans : probably he is 
reading of the lynching of a drummer, or perhaps he is perus- 
ing the advertisement of a rival clothing-house. 

" Meester Landlord ! Meester Landlord ! " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Giff me a good cigar : I vant to schmoke a leedle pefore I 
go to ped." 

Then he "schmokes;" and the smoke comes through the 
cracks, and fills our room. The doctor and I are both fond of 
cigars when we smoke them ourselves, but we dislike the taste 
of second-hand smoke. About the time the smoke becomes 
unbearable, we again hear the clarion voice of the Drummer. 

" Meester Landlord ! Meester Landlord ! " 

"Yes, sir." 

" I vood like a goople off towels : I vant to vash a leedle 
pefore I go to ped." 

He gets water, and he washes his face ; and he evidently 
gets water in his mouth, and soap in his eyes. Now he is puff- 
ing and blowing, and uttering grunts of satisfaction, as he 
grooms himself with the "goople of towels." We hear him 
taking off his clothes, and we think now surely he has had a 
"leedle " of almost every thing he could ask for. 

"Meester Landlord! Meester Landlord! Good-night! I 
think I vill go to bed, and schleep a leedle now." 

The clock struck two. The doctor said "Damit!" and we 
went to sleep. 



152 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

There was a very damaged and weather-beaten man at the 
breakfast-table. His left eye was concealed by a green shade, 
one of his ears and two of his fingers were gone, and his right 
leg had been amputated at the knee. Spliced on the stump 
was a wooden leg with an iron ring on the end of it, which, 
being loose, jingled as he walked. Four of his front teeth were 
missing. The doctor called him "The Remnant," because 
there was so much of him disposed of, and so very little left. 
He ate a great deal, but was very abstemious in the matter of 
speech. 

The Drummer was sitting at the end of the table, and was 
evidently much interested in the Remnant, and seemed de- 
termined to learn all he could of the strange-looking relic who 
was so taciturn and hungry. 

*' Haff you got some farming peesiness hereapouts, meester } " 
interrogated the Drummer. 

''No," growled the Remnant, as he planted a large Irish 
potato in the yawning chasm under his nose. 

" I thought you looked already as if you vas in the farming 
or stock peesiness." 

'' Yes -> " 

" Pooty hard spring on the catties, ain't it } " 

''So so." 

"Dot northers vas pooty bad for the scheeps, don't it.'* 
Haff you got some scheeps.-*" 

" Not a blamed hoof," replied the Remnant, as he retired a 
fresh roll at one effort. 

"You haff some catties, then .-*" 

"Oh, yes! oodles of 'em." 

" Do you keep dose catties on the range .-* " 

The reticent man failed to reply to this, as he was engaged 
in warehousing a bowl of clabber. The Drummer was knocked 
out of the ring, so to speak. He was on time, however, and 
opened the next round with, — 

" Haff you "— 

His query was cut short by a look that the Remnant gave 
him. Then, assuming the Drummer's accent and peculiarities 
of speech, the Remnant said, " Landlord ! Meester Landlord ! 



THE REMNANT. 



153 



Off you lend me a gun, I vants to shoot a leedle pefore I go to 

ped." 

Every one in the room seemed to see the point of the joke, 
and enjoy it, which was evidence that the Drummer's nocturnal 
remarks had been heard all over the house. Muttering some- 
thing about going down town to see a " gustomer," the Drum- 




THE REMNANT AT BREAKFAST. 



mer retired. After he had left, the Remnant said nothing until 
he had filed away three battercakes, a cucumber, and a saucer- 
ful of tomatoes. Then, having eaten until his jaws had become 
too tired to masticate more, and the chicken-dish looked like 
the front yard of a bone-factory, he gradually thawed, and be- 
came talkative. 

**You see," said he, addressing the doctor, "I don't never 



154 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

give no satisfaction to them sort of cross-questioners. That 
double-jointed Jew wanted to know all about my business ; and, 
if I had encouraged him, he would have tried to get the bottom 
figures on my pedigree, and maybe wanted to know if my 
grandfather wasn't biassed in favor of raw meat as a regular 
article of diet." 

After breakfast we talked with the Remnant. He told us 
that he had a ranch a short distance from town, where his 
men were then engaged branding calves ; that he was going 
out there in an hour, and that if we desired to see the operation 
of branding cattle, and witness some of the peculiarities of 
ranch-life, he would be pleased to have us accompany him, 
and spend the day on the Ranch Del Rio. We accepted his 
invitation, and rode out to the place where the branding was in 
progress. The Remnant was a rich and inexhaustible mine, 
full of lore of horse and horned cattle. Looking at his body, 
maimed, gashed, and sawed off, as it was, one would wonder 
how he retained any thing inside himself ; and so full was he 
of bullet-holes, and so cut up with amputations, the wonder is, 
that even his accumulated 'experience did not leak out of him, 
and get lost. As a mine of knowledge in the matter of cattle, 
he was a bonanza, out of which a curious but judicious pro- 
spector could dig chunks of information regarding the habits 
and domestic virtues of the cow, could excavate nuggets of pure 
truth in the matter of steers, and scoop out shovelfuls of two- 
hundred-to-the-ton facts bearing on the subject of roping and 
branding. 

As we rode along, I noticed that the Remnant looked pale 
and sad. His solitary and pensive eye rested on the ground, as 
if it expected to find a lost dime. I asked him what was the 
matter. 

** Oh, nothing! except I'm just getting over the remedies," 
he responded. 

**The remedies ! " 

" Yes, the remedies. I had a fever, and my friends have 
been trying to cure it. I got over the fever, but I'm still suffer- 
ing from the remedies. My liver has lost all public spirit. It 
refuses to act. I believe the mucous membrane of my epide- 



TRYING, THE REMEDIES. 1 55 

gastrum is seriously compromised, and I fear peritonitis may 
ensue. It all comes from the remedies." 

I may remark that the Remnant was much given to using 
words with the proper use of which he was not familiar. 

"Well, tell us all about it." 

"I was taken with a violent pain." 

"Where?" 

" Just opposite the post-office, day before yesterday evening. 
I felt so bad I wanted to die, and be a cheruphim. It felt as if 
my spinal column was a ladder, and that there were five or six 
pains running up and down it. Just then Smith came along, and 
hit me on the shoulder until every bone in my body groaned, 
and asked me how long it was since I made my escape from the 
bone-yard. He told me, that, when I smiled, it made him think 
of 'Black Friday;' and he asked me as a personal favor not to 
do so again. Then he tried to turn it off by saying that Robin- 
son Crusoe had a black Friday. I told Smith my symptoms, 
after he had sobered down ;i and he gave me some good advice. 
Says he, ' It's all right : you've got it. It runs in families. It's 
the epizootic. All the mules in town had it last year. Go right 
home, bathe your feet in hot water, and go to bed.' " 

"Well, what did you do 1 I want to know, as I may get it 
myself," I asked. 

" I went home in a hack, and described my symptoms to my 
wife's mother. She is a first-rate doctor, — knows all about 
herbs, and other household remedies." 

"What did she say you were suffering from V 

" She didn't make any regular Diogenes of the case ; but she 
merely observed that it was a singular coincidence that I always 
had these spells whenever there was firewood to be chopped, 
and that they passed off about the time dinner was on the table. 
She hinted, that, if I would only pass off too, she would regard 
it in the light of a personal favor." 

"If you can give me a lucid account of the symptoms, with- 
out bringing in your family pedigree, I would feel obliged. Try 
now, that's a good fellow ! " 

He assented, and gave me the following sickening details : — 

"I put my feet in hot water, and boiled them until they 



156 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



seemed to be done ; and then I took them out. My wife had 
heard that in such cases it was a good remedy to rub the throat 
with a piece of fat bacon sprinkled with pepper." 

"Did you rub the inside of your throat with a piece of fat 
bacon, or only the outside .? " I queried. 

" The outside, of course. How could I rub the inside with a 
piece of fat bacon, when I had to gargle it with salt and water, 
and with borax and alum, every five minutes } All these reme- 
dies were bound to help, one way or another. I didn't feel the 
pain in my back at all. I was so busy vomiting from the gargle, 

___^^^^^_^_^ -__- ■ -- -^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ didn't both- 

(iT 1 ^ ^ er me in the least. 

As I was begin- 
ning to get some 
good from the rem- 
edies, just to enjoy 
myself, a neighbor, 
who was a friend of 
the family, came in, 
and said there was 
no occasion for a 
man dying at all, if 
he would only rub 
the bridge of his 
nose and the soles 
of his feet with 
spirits of turpen- 
tine. I did not 
think he would lie about such a trivial matter, and I did as he 
said. I started out with a pain in my back ; and, by the use of 
the remedies, in less than an hour I was suffering from a sore 
throat, headache, had four more red-hot pains running up and 
down my spinal column, and began to feel symptoms of pre- 
liminary meningitis of the pericardium. Besides, I smelled as 
if I had been freshly painted. I had been plastered — mustard- 
plastered — already. My throat felt as if there was a never- 
ending torchlight procession going through it. Another friend 
of the family came in, and said there was no hope for my life 




SUFFERING FROM REMEDIES. 



HE WANTED TO DIE IN PEACE. 157 

unless a towel wrung out in ice-water was put around my neck. 
Somebody else had, in the mean time, prescribed castor-oil and 
laudanum, — as a remedy for the gargle, I suppose. The gargle 
was given to relieve me from the effect of the turpentine ; and 
the mustard-plaster was to cure some Mustang Liniment that I 
was suffering from. I had a pain in my left side, but I didn't 
mention it : for, if I had, they would have shaved my head, and 
put a fly-blister on it ; and, to cure the fly-blister, some friend 
might have worked on me with a stomach-pump. Some other 
benefactor would have given me a tablespoonful of ipecac, and 
sawed off my wooden leg. You see, I didn't want to feel too 
well : so I didn't let on about the pain in my side. That's 
what saved me from the remedies I didn't take. I took the 
castor-oil and the laudanum." 

"Well, that ought to have afforded you some relief, sooner 
or later." 

''I went to sleep," resumed the relic; ''but, just before I 
closed my eyes, my wife's mother greased my nose with a piece 
of mutton-tallow, — to cure the castor-oil, I suppose, — remark- 
ing, with her usual bland smile, that, if death really loved a 
shining mark, that nose ought to draw him. Anyhow, I slept. 
I dreamed I was making a speech from under a cross-beam, 
from which dangled garlands, or something of that kind. The 
sheriff seemed to be presiding officer. He was busy fixing 
the garland about my neck, and I was saying I could prove an 
alibi, when I awoke. My wife was taking off the wet towel. 
Mrs. Brown had come in since I went to sleep, and told them 
that a quilt wrung out of boiling water was what my neck really 
needed. They had the quilt all ready. The water was boiling 
hot. All I said was, ' Mr. Sheriff, do your duty. I want to 
die before another remedy gets here.'" 

'' How did the thing end t " I inquired. 

" Well, it was pretty tough on a man with one leg in the 
grave already, wasn't it } But I got my six-shooter ; and, laying 
it on the pillow, I told them I was going to die in peace. So 
they let me alone, and I soon got well enough to be around ; but 
I'm suffering yet." 

About two miles from town he suddenly checked his horse, 



158 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

gazed intently on the ground, and said, " Some fellow has lost 
his saddle-horse here this morning." 

There was no advertisement on any of the trees, offering a 
reward for a lost horse ; and, as there was no lost horse in sight, 
we were at a loss to understand why, if a horse was lost, our 
friend could know so much about it. 

The doctor inquired, '' How do you know that a horse has 
been lost } " 

" I see his tracks." 

" Are there not hundreds of horses pasturing on the prairies ? 
and how do you know that these are not the tracks of one of 
them ? " 

*' Because he is shod, and the horses herding on the prairie 
do not wear shoes." 

" How do you know that he is a saddle-horse, and lost 1 " 

" I see a rope-track alongside his trail : the horse has a sad- 
dle on, and the rope hangs from the horn of the saddle." 

" But why may he not be a horse that some one has ridden 
over this way this morning 1 and why do you insist that he is 
lost } " 

" Because, if a man had been on his back, he would have rid- 
den him on a straight course : but this horse has moved from 
side to side of the road as he strolled along ; and that is a plain 
sign that he grazed as he went, and that he had no rider." 

''After that, it would not surprise me," said the doctor, "if 
you were to tell us the age of the horse, and the name of the 
owner." 

''Well, that would not be very hard to do. There are signs 
that have told me the owner's name ; and there are other signs, 
that, if I had time to examine, would tell me his age. I know 
he is one of old man Pendegrast's horses. Pendegrast has a 
large bunch of horses down in the bottom ; and an old nigger 
down there does all his shoeing, and shoes no other horses 
except his. So we know his shoe-track, just the same as we 
know his brand." 

After this conviction on circumstantial evidence, it would 
not have seemed to us extraordinary if the Remnant had given 
us his opinion of the life and character of our great-grandmoth- 



"SIGNS'' ON THE PRAIRIE. 159 

ers, drawing his conclusions from an examination of some of 
our physical peculiarities. 

It is wonderful how expert these men become in readino- 
what they call " signs " on the prairie or in the woods. No 
sign escapes their practised eye : all manner of tracks, trails, 
and marks are to them data from which to draw conclusions. 
The peculiar movement of an animal will indicate the presence 
of some other animal in the neighborhood. A broken limb of 
a tree, a crushed weed, the debris around a camp-fire, the flight 
of a buzzard, and other such signs, are to the cowboy and the 
frontiersman what the signboards and advertisements are to 
the people who live in cities. 

When the vigilant policeman sees the legend ''First Chance " 
over a closed front-door, and sees a man with a market-basket 
on his arm entering by a side-door in search of a clove or a 
parched coffee-bean, at half-past six a.m., he knows that it is 
Sunday morning, and that the man is thirsty. 

When the cowboy sees the cattle, the deer, and the wild-dove 
heading in a certain direction, he knows to a certainty, that, by 
taking the same course, he will find water. So these volumes 
of signs that nature writes, and experience teaches to man, are 
read daily by the men who take a mustang and a six-shooter 
into partnership, and do business on the prairies and in the 
forests of the Far West. 

The finding of the body of the murdered Robert Trimble, 
near San Antonio, and the conviction of his murderer, Jose 
Cordova, was an illustration of this. Trimble left San Antonio 
for his home on the Rio Frio, driving in a wagon drawn by two 
mules. The mules, without the wagon, came home. Search 
was made for Trimble. The probability is, that his body would 
not have been found in the dense chaparral, but that, guided 
by the circling flight of the buzzards, the searchers were led to 
the place where they found the dead body. The murderer was 
tracked to Mexico, and arrested there ; a dent in the tire of the 
wagon-wheel enabling the parties who arrested him to follow 
his trail all the way to Mexico, and being the only clew they 
had to guide them. As the Remnant said, ''A man's tongue 
may be responsible for perjury, but signs don't lie." 



l6o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Passing through two gates, we found ourselves at the corral 
where the cattle being operated on were confined. All the 
cows and calves had been "rounded up," and the calves cut 
out and corralled. The pasture was fifteen thousand acres in 
extent. *' Rounding up " is a term used to denote gathering 
cattle. Cowboys ride around a large area of country, over 
which cattle are scattered, gradually diminishing the size of 
the circle, until the cattle are gathered together in a herd, or, 
as it is commonly called, a bunch. Sometimes cattle that do 
not belong to them are gathered with the others. These they 
"cut out." "Cutting out" is a difficult operation. The cow- 
boy rides into the herd, and, with shouts and elaborate waving 
of a lasso over his head, drives out such animals, one or more 
at a time, as he does not desire to retain in the herd. 

There are two kinds of branding-irons, and two modes of 
branding. One iron is of the shape of the letter or letters 
forming the brand, and, being heated, is stamped on the ani- 
mal's side or hip, and held there until it burns through the 
hair, and almost through the skin. The other, called a running 
brand, is a long piece of iron curved at the end. With this — 
the curved end being red-hot — the person branding writes the 
brand much after the free and fluent style in which shipping- 
clerks mark boxes. . Some brands are a single letter ; some, 
two or more letters ; others, monograms ; the majority, hiero- 
glyphics, unmeaning and untranslatable to a stranger, but plain 
to the cowboy, whose literary attainments very often extend 
only to a knowledge of all the brands of the county he lives in. 
Some men use immense brands, covering the whole side of the 
animal. We saw " Hell " in eighteen-inch letters on the sides 
of .some cattle in Western Texas. 

Samuel Johnson branded his Christian name on his cattle, 
beginning at the back of the ear, and ending at the tail ; and 
in some cases, when there was not room enough on a poor 
little calf, he would brand as much on one side as the calf-skin 
would hold, and* then "carry forwards," and brand the rest of 
the name on the other side, connecting with a hyphen on the 
tail. 

The most common mode of branding is conducted in the 



EAR-MARKS. l6l 

following manner : a vaqziei^o on horseback, with a lasso in his 
hand, rides up to a herd, starts a cow to run, and, as she runs, 
throws a lasso around one of her legs ; then, tightening it, he 
rides around her, entangling her legs in the rope, when, by a 
jerk, the helpless animal is thrown down. One man sits on 
her head, while another applies the hot branding-iron. After 
all this trouble taken by man with a view to improve and or- 
nament the cow, the ungrateful brute fails to show any appre- 
ciation of the kindness, and even groans and kicks when the 
artist applies the iron. So dissatisfied does she seem, that one 
would almost be compelled to believe that she did not care to 
receive and circulate the English alphabet. There never is 
much enterprise about a cow, anyhow, except when she gets 
into the front-garden at night. 

The other and less common mode of branding is to drive 
the animals into a narrow passage, just wide enough for them 
to squeeze through ; and, while they are in this tight place, they 
are cauterized. 

All brands and ear-marks are required by law to be recorded 
in the county-clerk's office in the county in which the cattle 
run. The ear-marks are made by cutting slits in the ears, 
cutting bits, or cropping or slicing pieces off them ; and it is 
wonderful how many ear-marks may be made by peculiar com- 
binations of "slits," "bits," and "crops." Hardly any two 
persons in Texas use the same ear-mark. 

The Remnant pointed out and explained all that was of 
interest. We learned that the brand, if burned to a sufficient 
depth, will last, and remain legible, as long as the animal lives, 
and will grow with its growth ; but, if not burned deep enough, 
it will be plain only until the animal sheds its hair in the spring. 
A friend of mine. Major Johnson, learned this shortly after he 
came to Texas. The way he acquired the knowledge was this : 
he bought a few cows and calves, and employed a neighbor to 
brand them for him. The neighbor put the major's brand on 
them in a very satisfactory manner. It showed as plainly as 
a grease-spot on a dress-coat, but it was not nearly of such a 
permanent character. It lasted until the next spring, when 
the new coat of hair began to come out. The honest neighbor 



l62 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



watched the brands as they gradually faded away; and, when 
they were no longer visible, he heated his own irons ; and about 
that time there was — as the market reports say — "consider- 
able operations in live-stock, several lots changing hands at 
merely nominal values." The major's cattle gradually disap- 
peared, while the horny-handed neighbor's herd increased and 
multiplied. 

The Remnant took us to another corral, to show us some 
four-year-old steers that he had just bought. Although 
these had two or three brandy and counter-brands of former 
owners on them, still our friend had to further ornament 
them. The animals were already so covered with letters and 
figures that he had to put his on the edges, like marginal 
notes. 

These grown animals are often difficult to throw down, and 
not unfrequently after being branded they become dangerous. 

The doctor found this out 
without the aid of our guide 
and instructor. 

One of the largest steers, 
after being branded, was 
rushing out of the pen. The 
doctor was entering by the 
way it was retiring. He 
thought he heard the men 
shout to him to stop the 
steer. Throwing his arms 
up, and spreading his legs 
apart, he shouted, '* Whoa ! 
Wheesh ! " The steer pro- 
ceeded until it arrived at 
where the doctor stood, apparently as if it didn't know he was 
there. Then there was a lowering of horns, an uprising of 
tail, and the next moment the doctor was sitting on the roof 
of a shed, looking down on us with a bewildered and pained 
expression in his eye ; while the steer was streaking across the 
prairie, his head high in the air, and one of the doctor's coat- 
tails on his horns. 




THE DOCTOR " ROUNDED UP. 



EXTENT OE TEXAS CATTLE BUSINESS, 1 63 



CHAPTER XIIL 




•fill^ WE read of two hundred 
and fifty thousand head of 
cattle being driven ev- 
^ ery year from Texas to 
the Northern markets, 
and when we are as- 
sured that in 1870 as 
many as five hundred 
^ and sixty thousand 
were driven on foot 
to Colorado, Wyo- 
ming, and Kansas-, besides thousands shipped by steamer to 
New Orleans and elsewhere, we are surprised to learn that 
this immense drain on the herds of Texas does not perceptibly 
decrease the number of cattle in the State. When we visit the 
great ranches of Western Texas,* we are no longer surprised, 
but rather wonder that the United States holds people enough 
to eat and use all the cattle we see. It has been found, from 
careful examination of the Census Bureau Reports, that to 
every hundred persons in the United States there is required 
eighty head of cattle, and that this requirement has not varied 
one per cent in thirty years. Taking this as a basis of calcu- 
lation, we find that the Northern and Eastern States have 
less than the requisite number of cattle, while Texas and 
other Western States have more than the requisite number; 
and it is to these States that the East looks for her beef- 
supply. 



1 64 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Texas had, in 1870, about nine hundred cattle to every one 
hundred inhabitants. 

Many prominent stockmen have changed the mode of raising 
cattle in Texas. Formerly they allowed their cattle to range at 
will over the broad prairies, only rounding them up once a year 
for the purpose of branding the calves, and cutting out the beef 
steers for sale. The cattle belonging to one man often spread 
over an area of country fifty to one hundred miles square. Now 
the stockmen are building fences, enclosing pastures, and giving 
much more attention to improving the breed of their cattle than 
formerly. Many pastures of from fifty thousand to one hundred 
thousand acres are to be found in Southern and Western Texas. 

In the coast counties there are cattle-lords whose herds, in 
number and value, surpass the flocks and herds of the great 
stockman of Uz. Capt. Richard King — known as the cattle- 
king of Texas — has, at the Santa Gertrude ranch, one hun- 
dred thousand head of cattle, ten thousand horses, seven thou- 
sand sheep, and eight thousand goats. Three hundred Mexican 
herders and vaqtteros attend to the multifarious duties necessary 
to the manasrement of these vast herds. The ride around the 
fence of the Santa Gertrude ranch is sixty miles in extent. 

Lieut. Atwell, who recently married the daughter of Capt. 
King, was presented on the wedding-morning, by the bride's 
father, with ten thousand head of cattle and horses. Just 
imagine the visitors, as they fingered over the wedding-pres- 
ents, when they came to ten thousand head of cattle among the 
card-cases, butter-knives, and napkin-rings that custom requires 
should be presented to bride and bridegroom by their friends ! 
and think of how embarrassed Lieut. Atwell must have been 
when he had ten thousand long-horned cows, frisky calves, and 
bellowing steers turned over to him, without even a halter 
around their necks to hold them by ! Nobody ever gave me 
ten thousand head of cattle, but I can remember when I re- 
ceived an old cow in payment of a bad debt. It was a very bad 
debt, and I came to consider it a very bad payment. She was 
a thin cow ; but the former owner said she was better than she 
looked, being a cross between the Jersey and the Durham. 
She looked as if she might have been a cross between an old 



''KEEP YOUR COW OUT OF MY SHRUBBERYr 165 



hair-trunk and an abandoned hoopskirt. I kept the brute three 
days ; and no one, except, perhaps, Lieut. Atwell, could ever ap- 
preciate the suffering I endured in that time. The first night 
she broke through the fence, and reduced to a pulp all the 
underclothing belonging to my next-door neighbor. She put 
her horn through my bath-tub, and ate up all my aunt's gera- 
niums. I had expectations from my aunt, but the extent of 
that cow's appetite ruined them. She — the cow I mean — was 
to give three gallons of milk a day ; but she seemed to be short 
just then, and never had that amount to spare while we kept 
her. In fact, she never 
produced any milk worth 
speaking of, unless it was 
the milk of human kindness 
that she kicked out of the 
hired man. The second 
day she walked into the 
kitchen and upset a pan of 
batter, my aunt's nerves, 
and a tub of lard. Then 
she fell down a well ; and 
when I got her out, at a 
cost of five dollars, she took 
the colic, whooping-cough, 
or something, and kept us 

awake all night. Not a green thing was left in my garden. 
My neighbor's peach-trees, and the rope on which his under- 
wear grew, were as bare of fruit as a single tree, and he did 
not have a twig of shrubbery left. My neighbor came over to 
see me, and said, — 

"Why do you let your cow into my garden at night } Why 
don't you take your blamed old cow in after dark } " 

"And why, my friend," said I, "don't you take your blamed 
old garden in after dark } " * 

" Now, I don't desire any quarrel, but I want you to keep your 
cow out of my shrubbery." 

" And I want you to keep your shrubbery out of my cow : it 
spoils the taste of the milk." 




"KEEP YOUR COW OUT OF MY SHRUBBERY." 



1 66 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Friends separated us ; but ever afterwards there was a cool- 
ness between us, and my neighbor's wife ceased to patronize our 
house when she wanted to borrow a cupful of yeast-powder. 

I could bear the cow no longer. I sacrificed her to the pay- 
ment of a bad debt I owed the grocer around the corner. Now, 
if one old cow disorganized my domestic economy, and destroyed 
the amicable relations existing between my neighbor and myself, 
what must Lieut. Atwell have suffered with ten thousand cows "i 
Think of the ruin and desolation of his garden ! Imagine how 
the neighbors over the way must have suffered ! I would ven- 
ture to say, that, inside of two weeks, there was not a living 
soul within fifty miles who had a shirt to his back. 

But this is a digression. There is a man near Corpus Christi 
who has one hundred and fifty thousand acres under fence. A 
lady, Mrs. Rabb, near the same place, has ninety thousand acres 
enclosed by a plank fence. Many such ranches could be referred 
to, and several stockmen could be named, who own more than 
one hundred thousand head of cattle and horses. 

John Timon of San Patricio, in announcing through an ad- 
vertisement his purchase of certain brands of cattle, says, — 

"■ All honest, industrious, poor men are welcome to kill an 
occasional calf, provided they do not waste the meat." 

Now, who says that Texas is not a good place for the honest, 
industrious, poor man } 

While the honest, industrious, poor man in Texas is skinning 
the cows and calves of John Timon and others, eating the meat, 
and selling the hides for whiskey, or bartering them off for a 
ticket to the bull-fight, the honest, industrious, poor man of 
Pennsylvania is offering to bind himself a slave for years in 
consideration of plain food and necessary clothing, and the 
assurance of burial after death. Vide the following petitions 
presented by a number of colliers to a capitalist at Scranton, 
Penn., some time ago : — 

"We will bind ourselves to be your slaves, to toil early and late, as our 
strength will permit, for you during one or five years, and never will ask you 
for one cent of wages-, if you will only give us and our families plain and 
sufficient food, such clothing as we really need, houses to live in, doctor and 
medicines when we are sick, and bury us when we die." 



CATTLE-KINGS. 1 67 

All that the industrious poor man has to do in Texas is to 
buy, or in some way own, a few cows, using them as an excuse 
for being on the range. Starting with these as a nucleus, he 
can add to the number considerably, provided he is an enter- 
prising man, who, in an absent-minded way, uses his own brand 
by mistake on his neighbor's calves, or on the mavericks he 
may find. If he attends strictly to business, and devotes him- 
self to honest industry in this way, he will be certain to rise in 
the world — it may be^ through the instrumentality of a rope, 
for Texas stockmen do not like this kind of " industrious poor 
man." If, however, he is smart enough to blotch a brand, and 
change an ear-mark, he is usually smart enough to avoid detec- 
tion, and very liable to get rich. 

In four years a man can quadruple his capital by engaging in 
the cattle business, and either protecting his herd, or stealing 
when he is stolen from. 

Eighteen years ago John Hetson was scratching a living out 
of the timber-lands of Tennessee. Seeing no prospect of im- 
proving his condition by staying where he was, he sold his land, 
and with the proceeds bought sixty cows, and brought them to 
Texas. He now owns fifty thousand acres of land and seventy 
thousand head of cattle. 

A Texas paper, speaking of M. L. B. Harris, says, "He 
began in 1856 with one hundred and fifty head of cattle. In 
1872 he had sixty thousand head of cattle valued at three hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and land, house, etc., valued at thirty-five 
thousand dollars, or a gain of, say, three hundred and thirty 
thousand dollars, besides what it cost him to support and edu- 
cate a family of eight children." 

These are not extreme cases. Many do as well : but the 
man who is not industrious in the cattle business will be as 
much of a failure as he would be in any other business ; and 
there are many men in Texas who are not industrious. 

If the Northern stockman, who has to feed and shelter his 
cattle during the winter, working hard all spring and summer 
to raise enough feed to keep them alive during the cold months, 
can make money in raising cattle, how much more can the 
Texan, who vexes himself not with labor, but just turns his 



1 68 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

cattle out on the prairie, where they get grass and water all the 
year round, and where the climate is so mild that they need no 
shelter. 

Imagine the Vermont farmer getting up before sunrise on a 
bleak winter morning. See him go shivering out to the barn 
to shuck corn, slice frozen turnips, and break the ice on his 
watering-trough with an axe. Observe how blue he looks as he 
sees the pile of fodder, that he labored so hard to raise in the 
other end of the year, diminish with a rapidity that makes him 
think there will not be enough to feed his stock through the 
winter. Then think of the Texan, on the same day of the year, 
as he gets up at nine o'clock, and strolls around the house 
without his coat. See him step into the garden and get a rose 
for his button-hole, while his wife cooks breakfast. The milch- 
cows are late this morning ; they have not come up from the 
prairie, where they have been all night : so he drinks his coffee 
without milk, and, although he has a thousand head of cattle to 
attend to, he "reckons" that they can take care of themselves 
without him, and he goes off to spend the day pitching horse- 
shoes, or playing sinful games for the drinks at the nearest 
grocery. He does not go to labor all morning in the barn. 
He has not got a barn, and says he does not need one. He does 
not waste an hour, and a piece of his thumb, in slicing frozen 
turnips, because he has not any turnips to slice. *' Don't need 
them," he says; "got plenty of grass: grass is good enough 
for Texas cattle." He does not look blue : he looks happy, as 
he sees the unlimited stretch of prairie, with its rich carpet of 
grass, enough in sight to feed ten thousand head of cattle 
through the winter, and suggestive of sleek yearlings and 
plump cows in the spring. 

In March or in February, if the spring is an early one and 
the grass abundant, stockmen, who drive to Colorado, Kansas, 
and Wyoming, round up their cattle on the range, or go around 
the country buying cattle from the small stock-raisers, until 
they get the number required to make up a herd. These are 
all branded with what is called the road-brand, — usually a single 
letter, and only hair-deep. The brand is used only for cattle 
driven out of the State, and for the purpose of identifying such 



THE COWBOY. 



169 



animals as might stray out of the herd on the way. From two 
to five thousand head are driven in a herd. Some stockmen 
send several "drives " yearly. Accompanying such herd, there 
are from twenty to thirty cowboys, sixty or seventy horses, and 
a supply-wagon. The horses are hardy mustangs, called cow- 
ponies. They are trained with an especial view to driving 
cattle, and seem to take an extraordinary pleasure in driving a 
straying cow back into the herd. If the rider will leave the 
matter entirely to the pony, he will head off the cow, and drive 
her to the herd as straight 
as a cow can be driven any- 
where, keeping close to her 
all the time ; and yet, with 
all this virtue, there is an 
amount of accompanying 
vice. As soon as he has 
turned the cow over to the 
proper authorities, he will in 
all probability be so elated 
over his exploit, that he will 
buck his rider off his back, 
and into a mud-hole and a 
state of protracted profan- 
ity. 

From Texas the owner of 
a herd usually goes to the 
terminal end of the drive by 
rail. The cowboys who ac- 
company the cattle are under the control of a captain, who ap- 
points, from the men under his charge, officers who have certain 
duties to perform, and who enforce discipline in the ranks when 
they are sober enough to know the difference between discipline 
and a demijohn. 

The cowboy is a man attached to a gigantic pair of spurs. 
He inhabits the prairies of Texas, and is successfully raised as 
far north as the thirtieth degree of latitude. He is in season 
all the year round, and is generally found on the back of a small 
mustang pony, ''wild and savage as a colt of the Ukraine." 




s^V'W'VH-,. . - 



COWBOYS. 



1 70 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

This fact has given rise to a widely diffused belief that the 
cowboy cannot walk ; and he is often cited as an instance — a 
stupendous manifestation, in fact — of the wonderful working 
of Nature to adapt her creatures to the circumstances surround- 
ing them. It is argued that once the cowboy was a human 
being, — a biped with the ordinary powers of locomotion, — but 
that during the course of ages, becoming more and more 
attached to his horse, and having gradually ceased to use his 
legs, these important adjuncts have been incapacitated for 
pedestrian uses, and thus the cowboy and his pony have devel- 
oped into a hybrid union of man and horse, — an inferior kind 
of Centaur. 

Some scientists, however, dispute this, as several specimens 
of the cowboy have been seen, from time to time, who, wander- 
ing into the busy haunts of man, have — under the influence of 
excitement, and while suffering from intense thirst — been seen 
to detach themselves from their mustangs, and disappear into 
business houses, where their wants were attended to by a man 
wearing a diamond breastpin and a white apron. Yet, though 
this was proved beyond a doubt by several competent witnesses, 
it was acknowledged that the specimens alluded to walked, or 
rather staggered, with uneven and wavering steps. This, how- 
ever, does not disprove the development theory. 

The cowboy does not wear a coat. His legs are weather- 
boarded with goatskin overalls to protect them from the thorns 
of the mesquite ; and he is roofed over with a sombrero, wide 
in the cornice for shade, and open at the top for ventilation. 

In the use of the lasso and profane language, he has no equal. 
He can rope a steer, throwing the noose on any foot of the 
animal as it runs at full speed; at the same time showing a 
choice in the matter of select and appropriate anathemas — 
which he delivers equally well, either in Mexican or United- 
States language, Long-Primer type — that is perfectly amazing, 
considering his limited acquaintance with the drama, and the 
refining influences of civilized life. It shows, however, what long 
practice, and a steady devotion to one pursuit, will accomplish. 

A herd of cattle travels an average of fifteen miles daily, 
often more than that when the streams are far apart. All the 



SAM GRANT, CAPTAIN OF THE DRIVE. 17 1 

herds follow the same trail, which is plainly defined from South- 
ern Texas to Wyoming, — a distance of fourteen hundred miles. 
They graze as they travel, guarded on every side by the drivers, 
who take turns at driving, and standing guard at night. Up to 
a few years ago, many herds were stampeded and captured by 
Indians on the route. Old herders have thrilling tales to tell of 
stampedes in dark and dismal canyons ; of attacks by Indians ; 
of days and nights passed on the plains, without water or food, 
separated from their companions, and pursued by the untutored 
child of the forest, who carries a regulation musket, and a blanket 
marked U. S, 

These tales contain only about ten ounces of truth to the 
ton, and among Texans they are only current at a heavy dis- 
count ; but, when the honest and truthful herder meets the 
health and romance seeking youth from the East, he is able to 
dispose of them at par. 

Sam Grant has been on the trail, driving cattle to Kansas 
every spring, for the last fifteen years. Sam was the super- 
intendent of the Remnant's ranch, and seemed to have no 
ambition beyond working with cattle and horses, and the ven- 
tilation of his apocryphal adventures. He was one of those 
strange characters to be met with in Texas, — a man of educa- 
tion and talent, whose love of adventure brought him there, 
and whose love of drink kept him in a position beneath what 
his talents and opportunities would indicate he was fitted for. 
Sam was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. When a boy 
at school, he caught trout when he should have been conju- 
gating Latin, and in one day squandered his quarterly allowance 
in a pie-feast given to his schoolmates. At college he culti- 
vated billiards rather than books, the green-room rather than 
the lecture-room, and yet he graduated with more than average 
honors. His excuses for absence from classes and lectures 
were inspirations elaborate and unassailable, and his alibis, 
when charged with participation in boyish escapades, brought 
confusion and dismay upon his accusers. What the boy prom- 
ised to be, the man was. 

When the cowboys gather around the camp-fires and relate 
their experience, Sam is invariably the most prominent and pro- 



172 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

noimced liar among them. There are more dead and wounded 
Indians in one chapter of Sam's experience than there are in 
whole volumes of tales by his contemporaries. He has trav- 
elled farther without water than a camel could ; and the suffer- 
ing he endured on one drive, when the whiskey gave out, and 
he existed for seventeen days without any thing stronger to 
drink than root-tea, must have been excruciating, and, as Sam 
avers, ''would have been death to a man with less nerve." 

"This is how it was. Major: in the spring of — well, more 
than ten years ago — I drove four thousand head of cattle to 
Colorado for Col. McKean of Victoria. I was captain of the 
drive, and had twenty-three men with me. We were well fixed, 
and had an ox-wagon loaded with provisions and things. It was 
a late spring, and the grass was backward. We got along very 
well until we got to the northern border of Texas ; for in those 
days, ten years ago, there was little or no fencing along the trail 
north of the Colorado, and we had lots of range to graze on. 
Now there is so much land taken up and fenced in, that the 
trail in Texas is little better than a crooked lane and hard lines 
to find enough range to feed on. These fellows from Ohio, 
Indiana, and other Northern and Western States, — the bone 
and sinew of the country, as politicians call them, — have made 
farms, enclosed pastures, and fenced in water-holes, until you 
can't rest ; and I say, damn such bone and sinew ! They are 
the ruin of Texas, and have everlastingly, eternally, now and 
forever, destroyed the best grazing-land in the world. Western 
Texas, sir, was never intended for raising farm-truck. It was 
intended for cattle and horses, and was the best stock-range on 
earth until they got to turning over the sod — improving the 
country, as they call it. Lord, forgive them for such improve- 
ments ! It makes me sick to think of it. I'm sick enough to 
need two doctors, a druggery, and a mineral-spring, when I 
think of onions and Irish potatoes growing where mustang 
ponies should be exercising, and where four-year-old steers 
should be getting ripe for market. Fences, sir, are the curse 
of Western Texas. 

" As I was saying, the country was open then, and we had 
water and grass in abundance until we got to the plains beyond 



SAM GRANT'S STORY. 173 

where the town of Fort Worth is now. Few settlers lived in 
that country then ; and the Indians made occasional raids down 
that way in the full of the moon, and drove off what stock they 
could find. 

"We left Fort Worth with plenty of provisions, a canteen 
of water, and a twenty-five-gallon keg of whiskey — tolerably 
liberal proportion of whiskey to the amount of water ! but, you 
see, we could get water from the creeks and branches as we 
went along ; but whiskey was not to be found on the plains. 

"One day's drive is just like another, — breakfast of coffee, 
biscuit, and bacon, at six o'clock, the men doing the cooking by 
turns, if we have no regular cook. Then the herd is started. 
The cattle have been rounded-up under guard all night. 

"The route that the trail follows is selected with a view to 
having watering-places at the end of each day's drive. There 
is a great deal of monotony, and a vast quantity of dust, con- 
nected with driving cattle. The only variety we have is the 
riding after some of those strike-for-freedom steers that are 
always trying to get away from the herd, in hunting jackass- 
rabbits, and in a social glass and game in camp at night. 

" After we crossed the Trinity, we found the grass short and 
the water scarce. One day we had to drive thirty miles from 
water to water ; and we lost a number of cattle that were not 
able to keep up with the herd, and dropped out, besides some 
that got drowned in the river. The cattle were so crazy for 
water that they crowded on top of each other, and many were 
pushed under and drowned. We stock-drivers never steal 
cattle ; but, if a strange steer gets mixed up with our herd, how 
can we help it } We can't stop to cut it out. On every drive 
we leave on the trail quite a number of cattle that have given 
out ; but a driver who understands his business will never let 
his herd fall below the number that he started out with. 

" We had got to the Clear Fork of the Little Wichita, and 
were in camp one night, with the cattle bunched out on the 
prairie, under guard. It was a calm, clear moonlight night. 
We were camped und5r a wooded bluff on the banks of a small 
creek. All but the guards were asleep, and not a sound could 
be heard but that made by the cattle grazing on the short, dry 



174 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

grass. If any one had dropped a pin, its fall would have sounded 
like a crowbar coming down on a tin roof. Suddenly, from the 
heights above us, came a sound, — the most devilish and terrible 
that ever falls on a frontiersman's ear, — the bloodthirsty yell 
of the sava2:e. Bullets and arrows fell thick and fast around 
us. One-half of my comrades were killed by the first discharge ; 
and before we, the survivors, could reach our saddle-horses 
where they were staked out, two of our number were shot down. 
There were only three of us left. The firing and the yells of 
the savages frightened our horses, and as many of them as 
could break their lariats stampeded. Only three horses were 
left. In my frantic efforts to get to the horses, I fell, and 
sprained my ankle slightly. Before I got on my feet again, 
my two comrades were mounted, and had gone. I ran to a 
small mott of timber fifty yards from where we had been 
camped. As I reached the shadow of the trees, the Indians 
rushed down the bluff, crossed the creek, and poured into our 
camp. I thought it was all up with me ; but they had not dis- 
covered me ; and while they were engaged in ransacking our 
supply-wagon, and scalping the dead, I climbed up a tree. 
There was no chance of escape for me. If I took to the prairie, 
I would at once be discovered ; for the moon was bright, and 
the prairie was without cover in the only direction I could go. 
If I waited until daylight, no doubt I would be found by the 
Indians. In this dilemma I knew not what was best to do. 
As I saw them scalp my dead comrades, and, in two or three 
instances, mutilate the remains, I became indignant ; but when 
the fiends found the barrel of whiskey, announced the discovery 
by yells of joy, and proceeded to drink that valuable medicine 
by cupfuls, I felt so outraged, that, for a moment, I thought of 
rushing in among them, single-handed, and selling my life as 
dearly as possible. All the men guarding the cattle were killed, 
and the cattle stampeded. 

** While I was thinking the matter over, — for it takes quite 
an amount of time to thoroughly arrange and mature the plan 
of such an attack as I contemplated, — I*made a discovery that 
gave me some hope. The Indians were getting drunk. ' In 
two hours after they began to drink they were all lying on the 



THE WHISKEY ALL GONE. 1 75 

ground in a beastly state of intoxication. I waited another 
hour, fearing that, if I disturbed them, some Indian less drunk 
than the others might insist on entering into a joint discussion 
with me. That fatal hour ! Had I not waited I mischt have 
saved at least — but, as the novelists say, I anticipate. 

*' I cautiously approached the Indians as they lay scattered 
around in the moonlight! There were fifteen of them, all dead 
drunk and asleep. I had a revolver in each hand, and a bowie 
in my boot, but I would have been safe without weapons : there 
was no danger of the Indians awaking. 

"Close to our wagon lay my chum, Frontier Dick. He was 
a good one, he was ; but he had roped his last steer, driven his 
last drive, and now he was rounded-up himself, and road-branded 
for the long trail. I was so mad when I saw he had been scalped, 
that I kicked the nearest Indian over the bank, into the creek. 

" Knowing that the Indians had horses staked somewhere 
up on the bluff, I calculated to take some supplies fropi the 
wagon, find a horse, and light out on the back trail. When I 
got to the wagon, the sight that met my eyes was enough to 
have made a raving maniac of a less strong-minded man. It 
chilled me : it was unutterably horrific. All the whiskey (four 
dollars a gallon at Fort Worth) was gone. The last drop of it 
was trickling on the ground. The vile Indians had left the 
faucet open when they tumbled down in their drunken sleep ; 
and here was I, all alone, two hundred miles from a house, and 
left without even as much of the precious fluid as would cure 
a rattlesnake bite. The ground was all wet and sloppy under 
the barrel, — the most extravagant irrigation I ever saw. 
Wasn't I mad, though, when I thought of the atrocity of the 
act ! Hoo-ee ! How I did cuss and snort and cavort ! You 
should have seen me. I pawed around, and stepped as high as 
a blind dog in a wheat-field, when I realized the vast superficial 
area of the savage villany that left me destitute of the very 
necessities of life. I determined to have revenge. The blood 
of my butchered companions, and the four-dollar whiskey on 
the ground, cried aloud for vengeance. You should have tasted 
that liquor, — not a bead on it that was not as big as a base- 
ball, and not a headache in a cord of it. Those red devils 



176 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



would have waked up next morning without a touch of head- 
ache if I had not made other arrangements. To make my 
story short, I scalped them. I didn't kill them, but I raised 
the hair of every one of them while they were alive. It didn't 
wake them, either : most of them just groaned, and turned over. 
I would have skinned one or two of them if I had had time; 






" "Tf ^^^ lit 



% 




THE WHISKEY ALL GONE. 



but I was compelled to get away from there. Securing a horse 
belonging to one of the Indians, and some provisions, I started. 
" I lost my way, and for two days travelled without knowing 
where I was. Then my provisions gave out, through my own 
carelessness and the enterprise of a wild hog. I found I was 
on a waterless plain called the Llano Salado. For two days 
I had nothing to drink. At the end of the second day I killed 



X 



i 



SORRY BE DID NOT SKIN THE SAVAGES. 1 77 

my horse, — he was dying with thirst, — and drank some of 
his blood. Then I was alone on the prairie, and going mad. 
When I slept, I dreamed of cool springs, murmuring brooks, 
and splendid soda-water fountains. When awake, I thought 
of all manner of cool drinks ; I imagined I heard the chink of 
ice in the glass, and, in my disordered fancy, could hear the 
barman inquire if I wanted a straw in mine. 

** I was rescued by a party of soldiers from Fort McKavett, 
and soon recovered my reason ; but I have never got over the 
sight of the empty barrel with the last drops dripping from the 
faucet : and when I think of those fifteen Indians waking up 
next morning, — having probably caught cold from sleeping 
with their heads uncovered, — my conscience reproves me, and 
the pangs of remorse torture me, when I remember that I did 
not skin some of the savages." 



12 




178 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 








- -j^ 



CHAPTER XIV. 



'^^Yll ^^^ returned to the hotel, we found a 
Tii]^ seedy-looking man talking to the land- 
V '^ lord. The latter was trying to fix his 

attention on a dead rat that was lying 
on the street, and he seemed anxious 
that the man should finish his story, 
and go away. Judging by the elastic 
character of the tales the seedy-looking 
man was telling, I supposed he was an 
insurance-agent. The landlord intro- 
duced him to us. I asked him what 
company he represented, which led to 
mutual explanations. He said he was 
a real-estate agent. He had lands to sell in every county in 
Texas, in quantities to suit customers, from an eleven-league 
grant to a lot in a graveyard. He wanted to know if we were 
prospecting for land. I intimated that we would not mind 
buying a ranch or two if the location and price would suit. 

In the most enthusiastic manner, and with extravagant ges- 
tures, he told me of several tracts and leagues of land where 
the grass was absolutely offensive in its luxuriance, and wh-ere 
murmering streams supplied countless herds with refreshing 
water. He spoke of fields burdened with golden grain, of the 
silken plumes of the waving corn, and the emerald green of the 
sugar-cane. He pictured scenes which would delight the eye 
of the artist. Such timbered shelter as he described ! — where 
cows live and flourish until they are so old that the yearly 
wrinkles cover their horns to the very tips, making it necessary, 
in some cases, to attach corn-cobs for the wrinkjes to grow out on. 



ELASTIC TALES. lyg 

He told us of farms where the fences would last until our 
grandchildren would be decrepit with age, and where the corn 
grew so luxuriantly that they used the stalks for wagon-tongues. 
Every thing he had for sale was cheap, and the terms Q2isy. 

" Be-a-u-ti-ful, sir!— just the thing to suit you — exactly what 
you want —a small "payment down — balance, five yearly pay- 
ments—ten per cent interest." He did not stop to give us a 
chance to say a word for two hours. His harangue was one of 
the most intensely gorgeous pieces of brass-mounted mendacity 
I ever listened to. Recognizing that he was an interested 
party, I was prepared to receive his statements aim graito salts, 
as the Irish say ; but I was not prepared to meet such a volumi- 
nous and fluent liar, or to hear such grapes-of-Eshcol stories 
about the "Garden of the Universe," as he chose to call Texas. 
Shades of Homer, Munchausen, and Monte-Cristo ! What an 
abundant imagination that land-agent had ! If any one has a 
lily to paint, or fine gold to gild, he is the man to do it. His 
reference to a Canadian thistle would leave the impression that 
you had been listening to a detailed description of one of the 
cedars of Lebanon. His intimation that the wealth and treas- 
ures of the Indies were but a mere bagatelle — the wealth of a 
church-mouse, in fact — when compared with the latent riches 
lying hid in Texas soil, and waiting to be appropriated by the 
transplanted Fenian and Teutonic exile, was decidedly neat and 
gratifying. 

Tell us about Sindbad's valley of diamonds, and of that other 
valley of Thessaly, or tell us the tale of Jack's gigantic bean: 
stalk, and we incline a credulous ear. Such things may be : 
Quien sabe? But to talk, to one who has been there, of a 
hundred bushels of corn to the acre ; of tomato-vines up which 
you can climb out of reach of an infuriated bovine ; of the con- 
genial society to be found in Texas (men who can consistent- 
ly cover six inches of whiskey daily, and run a semi-weekly 
prayer-meeting),— this is pressing matters a little too far. 
What intensified the insult to truth, in the case of this land- 
agent, was, that he possessed a child-like style calculated to 
gain the confidence of the credulous foreigner. When he made 
an assertion, truth, disgusted, crept back into her well. I do 



l8o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

not think that he meant to overstep the limits of fact to any 
great extent. He had trained himself to believe a great deal 
of what he said. Possibly he thought that truth unadulterated 
was insipid, and that to make prosy truth palatable it required 
just a little alloy of poetic fiction to correct it, and give it tone : 
like Mrs. Brown, when she took ginger for her stomach, she 
put in a little — very little — brandy, "just to correct the gin- 
ger." 

All lands offered for sale by real-estate agents are rich and 
fruitful. If there are rocks on it, why, it is all the more valu- 
able : you can pick up the rocks, and build such fine everlast- 
ing fences with them ! If you object to the timber, the agent 
will demonstrate to you that it is more valuable than the land. 
If you hesitate because there is no timber, he will prove to you 
that the amount you save by not having to cut down timber 
is more than the price he asks for the farm. The land is 
well watered. Springs and brooks murmur and meander all 
through it. 

The real-estate agent, as a general rule, only shows the 
bright and sound side of the apple. Occasionally one is found 
who has a bowing acquaintance with truth ; but even he will 
only tell the prospective purchaser of the advantages the land 
offers, suppressing any information as to disadvantages that 
might prejudice the prospect of sale. 

The immigration agent is built of the same material as the 
real-estate agent ; but he is more dangerous, because his range 
is more extended. He represents usually the immense tracts 
of land owned by railroad companies ; while the real-estate agent 
may only represent part of a county, or the lands in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of the place where he lives. The immigra- 
tion agent can describe the State of Texas so as to place before 
the mind's eye of the foreigner a wonderful vision of an elysium 
where milk and honey flow from perennial springs, and where 
lying {'^ p. pr. of lie. Being prostrate ; to rest horizontally." — 
Webster) under the shade of a tree, and drinking buttermilk, 
is called work ; whereas, if he were to conceal all of the good 
things that Texas contains, and tell all the bad and disagree- 
able things in her borders, he might draw a picture that would 



THE OLD VETERAN. 



l8l 







prevent even the hardy Northern murderer from coming to 
Texas. 

The real-estate agent and the immigration agent have proba- 
bly no superior in the art of decorative mendacity ; but they have 
an equal, — the old Texas veteran. We met one of the old vet- 
erans at Eagle Lake while we were there. I cannot yet decide 
what form of capital punishment would be severe enough for 
his case. 

The old hero of the war with Mexico is very numerous in 
Texas. He received his ''baptism of fire" at San Jacinto or 
Goliad. He was exceedingly intimate with Gen. Sam Houston ; 
and, if you give him a chance, he boils over 
with reminiscences of the confidential con- 
versation he had with the father of Texas, 
"way back in '36." The old veterans — 
''battle-scarred heroes," the newspaper 
reporters call them — die at the rate of 
twenty-three hundred per annum ; and their 
obituary notices and biographies in the 
local papers, under the head of *' Another 
Old Landmark Gone," all bear a striking resemblance to each 
other. There are enough of the veterans of '36 left in Texas 
to furnish the State with gory fiction for the next ninety years. 
It may be wrong to suggest an act that would be against the 
peace and dignity of the State ; yet, if an aged Texan veteran 
should try to inflict on you any of the unpublished history that 
he continually overflows with, I would advise you to steal the 
first horse you can find, and leave the neighborhood. If you 
should be caught and hung, or indicted for horse-stealing, it 
will be less distressing to your surviving relatives to know that 
your career ended in that way, than that you should have suf- 
fered a lingering death at the hands of the old veteran. Under 
the circumstances, a man would be justified in stealing a whole 
narrow-gauge railroad, franchise and all, rather than take the 
risks. When you are injudicious or reckless enough to allow 
an old veteran co corner you, he begins his fiendish work in a 
quiet way. " Are you related to old Gen. Soandso, who fought 
the Indian^ at Suchandsucha Creek in '35 } " You remind him 



OLD VETERAN. 



1 82 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

so much of the old general, he tells you. Then he will ask you 
if you can see yonder court-house : and he will tell you that he 
killed a buck *' right thar in 1835, 'bout this time o' year," or it 
may be that he scalped an Indian '' thar ; " but he is sure to 
have done something on that spot, no matter what it was. 
That is invariably the way that the men who gained the inde- 
pendence of Texas begin to swop lies with a stranger from 
the North. Then he will grow bolder, and tell you an anec- 
dote about Deaf Smith, the scout. If you do not get excused 
at this point, on account of having to go to see a century-plant, 
you are lost, and nothing will save you from a recital of all the 
incidents of grim-visaged war, and a modest statement of how 
different matters would have been if Fannin had only taken 
the veteran's advice on the morning of the massacre at Goliad. 
It is no use to invite him to drink, with the hope of stemming 
the flood of lies : he will accept, of course ; but he will hold on 
to your arm with one hand, while he reaches for the stimulant 
with the other. The proper time to stop a leak is at the begin- 
ning ; but now you are in the midst of the raging maelstrom of 
crude frontier eloquence, floating along, as it were, amid the 
debris of the English language, while the odor of an originally 
bad breath, aggravated by a cheap article of tobacco, fills the 
air. He has a reckless habit of spluttering tobacco-juice over 
the surrounding landscape. He reads your thoughts, and his 
iron grasp never relaxes. All the time, that mitrailieuse of a 
mouth, that eruptive crater of a mud-volcano, keeps on throw- 
ing out jets of tobacco-juice, gas, and lies, in quantities that 
would excite astonishment if disgust did not overcome every 
other emotion. He fights all his battles o'er again, and through 
field and flood he carries you with him, so to speak. You 
have to accompany him to Texas, in company with a number 
of other adventurers and horse-thieves, in 1835. You have to 
camp out, and sleep with him under the same blanket, while 
Indians and wolves prowl around in the bushes. You suffer 
under Mexican tyranny, are imprisoned, ciained, taken to 
Mexico, and almost starved to death on the ^^nv : you make 
your escape, join the patriot army, are massacrea with Fannin 
at Goliad, escape slaughter at the Alamo by provin^^, an alibi. 






SHAKING HIM OFF. 1 83 

and still survive to be taken prisoner some more at Mier. At 
last you drive out the hireling foe, and hurl Santa Anna into 
captivity at San Jacinto ; but, before you have a chance to rest, 
•the old veteran puts you to work clearing land, mauling rails 
in the month of June, organizing vigilance committees, and 
going to the Legislature. Finally, when you are almost worn 
out, and wish you were dead anyhow, he annexes you to the 
United States in 1841. 

The old veteran keeps on, although you tell him you must 
go to the post-office before the mail closes. He asks you to 
wait a moment, until he gives you the particulars of the duel 

between Gen. With a mighty effort you tear yourself from 

his grasp and the fascination of his eye. Once more you are a 
free man ; and, glancing back as you hurry away, you see the 
relic of mistaken Mexican clemency looking about for a fresh 
victim. When the old veteran is not sitting on a fence at 
home, bearing false witness against the facts of history, he is 
either a prominent figure at the re-union of somebody's brigade, 
talking at a meeting commemorative of the battle of Cowhouse 
Creek or some such place, or making the rounds with a peti- 
tion to the Legislature asking for another pension : but the 
legislators know him ; and believing that it is this hope, spring- 
ing eternal in the veteran's breast, that is the cause of his lon- 
gevity, they have of late years refused to be accomplices in 
his continued existence. They have refused to give him any 
more pension, probably actuated by the base, selfish motive of 
making themselves popular with the masses. 

The old hero shines at every public gathering in Texas, from 
the anniversary of the death of a stage-robber down to a county 
convention. A barbecue without a brigade of veterans is some- 
thing that has never taken place in Texas. 

Among the old Texas veterans there are real heroes, — men 
who fought and suffered for the cause of liberty, and whose 
self-sacrifice and daring deeds of valor gave Texas her indepen- 
dence. Against these I have no word to say : they deserve all 
honor and praise. What I have said applies to the alleged vet- 
erans, — the men who, when the real veterans were drivins; back 
Santa Anna's troops, were fighting cockleburs in the cotton- 



1 84 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

fields of Alabama, and boiling tar in North Carolina ; who 
afterwards came to Texas, and developed into the old liars that 
they are. These alleged veterans are common to all countries 
that have a history or that own a battlefield. 

The undulating prairies and high hills of the great stock- 
raising counties of Western Texas are the most healthy part of 
the earth's crust I have ever seen, or ever expect to see. It is 
asserted that there the inhabitants never die of disease or age. 
They either shuffle off the coil through- the instrumentality of 
a six-shooter, or grow old, dry up, and blow away. Tradition 
tells of a misguided young doctor who went West hoping to 
make a living out of the sufferings of his fellows, but he soon 
found that his pills were literally a drug in the market. People 
refused his twenty-drops-in-a-teaspoonfui-of-water, and would 
have nothing to do with his mustard-plasters : so he went from 
bad to worse, and from worse to whiskey ; and the last heard of 
him he had stolen a grindstone, and was rolling around trying 
to make a living sharpening bowies, scissors, and razors. 

There is a legend to the effect, that once upon a time some 
immigrants, entering Texas at Red River, met a very old man, 
with beard as white as snow, and features seared and shrunken 
by the hand of time, — a mere shadow of antiquity, a human 
wrinkle, an allegory of age. This antique petrification was 
hurrying with all speed to the boundary of the State. On 
being interrogated as to his reasons for such haste, he stopped 
not, neither did he pause ; but, as his weird form disappeared 
in the distance, the murmuring winds brought back the mourn- 
ful reply, " I am tired of life and of the monotony of the ages, 
I am weary of the slow steps of time and the dragging march 
of the centuries, and I am hurrying out of Texas that I may 
find some place where people can die." 

A high-born gentleman of Mexican descent was, not long 
since, searching through the old dusty records of Bexar County. 
He loved to delve among these old relics of by-gone days. 
With a melancholy interest he searched for forgotten records 
of the past, on which to base a fraudulent claim to the land 
and improvements of some present occupant, who would prefer 
to suffer blackmail to the extent of a few hundred dollars, 



DON JOSE IGNACIO FUERTE VE/EZ. 185 

rather than bear the expense and uncertainty incident to a law- 
suit. While thus piratically engaged, he discovered an old 
document written in Spanish, bearing date 1810, and entitled 
^'An Account of the Marvellous Restoration to Health of Don 
Juan Ignacio Fuerte Vejez." Inasmuch as this document goes 
to illustrate, or rather demonstrate, that Western Texas is 
healthy beyond any other part of the world, a brief synopsis of 
the strange and romantic incident narrated therein is hereby 
given. ^ 

Don Juan Vejez, as we shall abbreviate his rather attenuated 
name, was born in old Spain. His parents were honest, and, 
no doubt, poor. The young man was endowed with a very 
feeble constitution. When he was born, all the old ladies in 
the neighborhood cheered up the parents of the puny infant 
with the prediction that he could not live. No such luck was 
in store for them. He lived and grew up, but with a shattered 
constitution. He succeeded in reaching his fortieth year with- 
out dying ; but at that time consumption had made such inroads 
that the doctors declared his very existence to be an insult to 
the profession. Probably his unwillingness to fortify his sys- 
tem with their remedies had much to do with the matter 
Even at that early day (1709) the fame of Western Texas as a 
health resort had reached Spain, and Don Vejez determined to 
give the Texas climate a chance to cure him. It was askin- a 
great deal of the climate, but he was not particular about that 
He reached the Canary Islands just as a colony of thirteen 
families was setting out with the intention of moving to San 
Fernando de Bexar, as the present town of San Antonia Tex 
was then called. Don Vejez joined the emigrants. Nothing 
but the hope of administering on his Daggage, of which he 
had considerable, induced the colonists to allow him to accom- 
pany them. Count Jose Maria de Cuatro Palacios, who had 
charge of the party, said to the Marquis Tejada Hernandez de 
los Santos, as he motioned with his thumb over his shoulder in 
the direction of the emaciated skeleton, - I'm afraid he will 
not last long enough for us to utilize him in starting our new 
graveyard in San Fernando." -- I fear he will not," said the 
marquis, who had known Vejez in Spain. - He always was an 



1 86 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

unaccommodating old fellow, but I'll risk a box of cigars on 
it that he gets there." 

When the caravan arrived at the outposts of the old mission 
of San Jose, Don Vejez was still along with the party, but 
apparently in a dying condition. He was lifted out of the rude 
vehicle, and, for convenience' sake, was placed in a side chapel. 

Seven days have come and gone, as the novelists say. 

The Marquis de los Santos meets Count Cuatro Palacios on 
the plaza. '' I'll take that box of cigars," said the marquis. 

** No," said Count Cuatro : " the bet was, that the old skele- 
ton would not be utilized in starting our graveyard. He is 
here, but he may recover." And they both laughed heartily 
and heartlessly. 

*' Of whom were you speaking, sefiors } " said a tall, dark 
stranger, who stepped up to them. 

" We were talking about that long-winded old boneyard, Don 
Vejez, who is suffering for a funeral," remarked Palacios. 

" Draw ! " shouted the stranger ; and his blade flashed in the 
sunlight. The two noblemen were amazed. 

"Who are you.''" they asked, as they placed their hands on 
their swords. 

''I am Vejez, with whom you proposed to start your grave- 
yard ; but, thanks to the climate of this presidio, I am suffi- 
ciently recovered to start a graveyard of my own. Defend 
yourselves ! " 

The ancient records of San Fernando de Bexar show that 
the first two of the colonists from the Canary Islands who died 
v^ere the Count Jose Maria de Cuatro Palacios and the Marquis 
Tejada Hernandez de los Santos. 

It was indeed Vejez. In a few days the dying invalid had 
been transformed into an able-bodied man. His stomach had 
so completely regained its tone that he could astonish it with 
successive cocktails without any injury whatever, except, per- 
haps, to the cocktails. He so entirely recovered his appetite, 
that he was a terror to boarding-houses. The venders of patent 
medicines applied to him for his photograph, to be used in their 
advertisements under the head of "After Taking." 

Let us pass over an entire century, and again visit the/r^- 



THE MARQUIS AND THE COUNT 



187 



sidio. It is the year 1810; and San Fernando has, by royal 
decree, changed its name to San Antonio. It is a city now. 




DON VEJEZ, THE MARQUIS, AND THE COUNT. 



There are more houses, more soldiers, but fewer Indians, than 
in 1 710. Several generations have been killed in battle with 



1 88 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

the Indians, and consigned to the graveyard that Don Vejez 
was so prompt in starting. Moss is on the tombstones of the 
two oldest inhabitants of the over-crowded cemetery. But how 
about the man who came to San Fernando for his health a 
hundred years ago .'* Can his grave be seen t It cannot be 
found. No tombstone bears his name : no marble tablet on 
the walls of the gray old cathedral commemorates the virtues 
of Don Juan Ignacio Fuerte Vejez. This is not surprising, 
because the old man still lives. One hundred and forty sum- 
mers have slightly browned his cheek, and an equal number of 
winters have blanched his locks. He still goes around with the 
boys, as he calls the decrepit old relics of eighty or ninety 
years, and predicts that their mothers will never raise them. 
As he steps briskly along the streets of San Antonio, the 
undertaker comes out of his shop, and casts a long, bewildered 
glance after his retreating form- 
Quite early in life, comparatively speaking, he had married ; 
and the result was, that, in 1810, a host of adults called him 
great-grandfather. They honored and respected the old man ; 
for he owned many ranches, and long rows of houses yielded 
him monthly tribute. 

There was indescribable tenderness, in look and language, 
when those middle-aged heirs would take the old man's hand, 
and inquire after his health. Did he sleep well at night } and 
how was his appetite t The whole community sympathized 
with those suffering heirs, and wanted to share their joy, or 
any thing else that would come to them, at the old man's 
death. The almost despairing heirs tried all manner of devices 
to smooth his pathway to the tomb, but all in vain : he per- 
sisted in taking his own time. Old Vejez betrayed, as yet, few 
signs of decay : his eye was bright, and his step as elastic as of 
yore. He quaffed, with as much gusto as ever, his favorite 
beverage of whiskey and garlic, and seemed still prepared to 
weather many a storm. Finally, a happy 'thought occurred to 
the heirs. They immediately acted on it. They persuaded the 
hale, hearty old fellow that it was his duty to visit one of his 
plantations on the Lower Brazos River. He had never been 
out of Western Texas since he arrived there from the Canarv 




VEJEZ RETURNINC- TO LIFE IN CATHEDRAL. 



BACK FROM THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 1 89 

Islands. His relatives told him that the change would do him 
good. He said he did not need change, but he consented to 
go. The heirs chuckled ; and one of them, who had a literary 
weakness, prepared to manufacture some obituary poetry. The 
miasmatic influences from the unhealthy bottom of the Brazos 
River got into the old man's bones, and he died. When his 
relatives heard of his death, they outwardly assumed the garb 
of mourning, but inwardly they rejoiced exceedingly. They 
became very popular all at once, and were called " Don This " 
and ** Don That," and had unlimited credit at all the stores. 
They walked around, decked out from head to foot in black 
suits, with a wealth of crape on their hats, and a sackcloth-and- 
ashes kind of cast in their eyes. In due time the corpse of 
Don Vejez was conveyed to San Antonio, to be laid away in 
that densely populated burial-place that he had been expected 
to inaugurate just a century before. 

And now behold the body, as it lies in state in the old cathe- 
dral, surrounded by swinging censers, chanting priests, and 
mourning friends, while above the subdued murmur of solemn 
requiems for the dead can be heard the sobs and wails of the 
heart-broken heirs. Suddenly, without any warning, from with- 
in the coffin is heard a sound, — a rustling as of funereal linen, 
— and old Don Vejez sits up in his coffin, and demands his fa- 
vorite drink of whiskey and garlic. 

The miasma of the Brazos brings with it death, but the 
healthful breeze from the San Antonio River brings back life 
again. 

It required a company of soldiers to escort the feeble but 
fully restored old boy to his home, so great was the rage of 
the grief-stricken heirs and the over-sanguine tradesmen, who 
had advanced money and things. 

Of course there was no unanimity as to what it was that 
worked the miracle. The priests explained it to their own sat- 
isfaction. They themselves were the guilty parties, whose 
fervent prayers had brought the' dead to life, and swindled the 
heirs of Don Vejez. When the raging heirs came around with 
clubs to have the matter explained, the wily priests said that it 
was the fervency of the devotions, and the sincerity of the 



IQO 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



grief of the heirs, that had caused the interposition of Divine 
Providence. The heirs ultimately laid it all on the devil and 
the climate. And Don Juan Ignacio Fuerte Vejez lived many 
years afterwards, leaving a new crop of heirs discomfited : for, 
by his will, his wealth of lands and tenements was bequeathed 
to the church of Nuestra Senora de Guadaloupe. 




THE PROFANE GENERAL, 



191 



CHAPTER XV. 




SPENT a day fishing at Eagle Lake. 
It would be more correct to say 
that the doctor spent the day 
trying to catch fish, while I en- 
^^._ joyed myself under the shade 
of a tree, in company with 
Gen. McCarty, and in the 
_^_ - - ' - - — -— ^ immediate vicinity of a 

„r:^ - __ ^. j-^^"^ very fine lunch furnished 

hy the general The ^r^- 
vet rank of old McCarty may have been colonel. As I did not 
wish to take any risks, and on the principle that the greater 
contains the less, I called him general. He was an old veteran 
too : at least, I think he was — he told me some extraordinary 
fish-stories. 

Gen. McCarty lives at Eagle Lake. He is noted for his pro- 
fanity, and his knowledge of angling, deer-hunting, wild-turkey 
shooting, and kindred sports. The general's great delight is to 
get a young man from the city out for a day's hunting or fishing, 
and then to perpetrate antique practical jokes at the expense of 
the stranger, — jokes that were old when Nimrod exploded his 
first cartridge, and that depend for point on the city man's 
ignorance of the details and technicalities of rural sports. 

There was one story, in which a verdant Englishman figured, 
that the general seemed to enjoy telHng very much. I thought 
of publishing it in this book : so I wrote the story as the general 
told it. Then I saw at once that it contained too many cuss- 
words, making it inconsistent with the general moral tone of 



1Q2 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

the book : so I scratched out all the profanity. Then I found 
there was not any story left. In this connection, I would state 
that there is a law in Texas against profane swearing ; that the 
law is seldom, if ever, enforced ; and that the oaths uttered by 
the average cowboy are the most foul-mouthed and gratuitously 
devilish blasphemies that I have ever heard — and I have listened 
to the coster-monger in Seven Dials, the fish-vender in Billings- 
gate, and the Bowery-boy in New York. 

To return to old man McCarty. A joke was once played, of 
which he was the principal victim. 

From that part of Texas where Gen. McCarty lives, most of 
the wild animals — except cowboys and an occasional wildcat — 
have retired before the rapid advance of civilization, and are 
only to be found in the western canyons. Once in a long time 
there are rumors that a ** Mexican painter " (panther) has been 
seen in some of the neighboring bottoms ; but the panther, east 
of the Colorado, is about as mythical as the sea-serpent. Many, 
however, believe that there are still some of them to be found 
in Eastern Texas. 

Two young men living near Eagle Lake determined to have 
some amusement at the expense of their credulous neighbors. 
The names of the young men were Joe Goodson and Sim Way- 
land. They could both imitate the panther's voice. Joe's part 
was to cry like a young cub, while Sim, who had a deep bass 
voice, growled in imitation of the parent animal. They first 
circulated a report that they had heard a panther down in the 
bottom. Then they went out next night, and howled and 
growled in the edge of the woods. A number of the neighbors 
heard the sound, and circulated the news next morning ; one 
man averring that he had seen the ** painter," and that it was 
as big as a calf. Next day all the old fire-arms in the neighbor- 
hood were loaded, and about twenty men on horseback went out 
to trail the *' varmint." Gen. McCarty was chosen leader of 
the party. The country was scoured for miles around, but with- 
out result other than the alleged discovery of the panther's 
tracks in several places. 

This thing went on for about a week, the concert being re- 
peated every night at different points in the neighborhood, and 



A JOKE ON THE GENERAL. 193 

the crowd of men in pursuit increased hourly. Many people 
asserted that they had glimpses of the animal. An old negro 
came suddenly on Sim at night in the woods, as he was deliver- 
ing himself of one of his fearful caterwauls. Sim was astonished, 
and ran to avoid detection. The old negro shook with fright, 
so that his gun went off, and he fell from his horse. Next day 
he told the story : " Gimmen, fo' God, dat ar painter was nine 
feet high, an' bigger'n a ox ; an' he jest skooted, you better be- 
lieve. Scared } No, sah ! dis niggah was jest a bit 'fusticated 
at fust ; but de painter — Lordy, how he was scared ! I had to 
be mighty peart to fire one bar'l into him, and he went off on 
three legs. He kivered groun', an' don't you forgit it." 

The old negro was not a veteran, either ; had only been in the 
State a few years ; but every thing develops under the expansive 
influence of the genial climate of Texas. 

Gen. McCarty was determined to kill the panther. On a 
certain Tuesday night it had been heard in the creek bottom 
below the cabin of an old negro named Mose Patterson. The 
general reconnoitred the neighborhood on Wednesday, and 
discovered signs that were conclusive evidence to him that the 
panther went to water by a certain trail that ran close to the 
cabin. That night he stationed himself and a bottle of stimu- 
lant behind a fence, close to the trail. The hours dragged 
along : the tree-toads trilled their monotonous chorus, the owls 
drowsily hooted, and the old man slept. The howl of the pan- 
ther awoke him. He saw in the dim starlight a huge object 
moving along the trail. Bang ! bang ! and two loads of buck- 
shot killed Mose Patterson's old work-ox. It cost the general 
twenty dollars, that he paid Mose for the ox, and as much more 
that he was compelled to expend in drinks for the crowd next 
day, when the news of his successful shot got abroad. 

When any one wants to know how much profanity there really 
is in the old man, he has only to say, "■ Well, general, haven't 
shot any panthers lately, have you } " 

The Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad Com- 
pany, whose road runs from Houston to San Antonio, being 
desirous of having the country tributary to their road settled 
up, sent an agent named Kingsbury to England, to represent 
13 



194 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

the advantages that South-western Texas offers to the EngUsh 
farmer who is desirous of emigrating. Several hundred EngUsh 
families have been induced to come to Texas, during the last 
year or two, by the representations of Dr. Kingsbury. Some 
of these people are doing well ; some have gone back to Eng- 
land ; and the rest lie around, and spend their leisure in writing 
letters to the London ''Times" and ''Telegraph," abusive of 
Kingsbury and the State of Texas. 

Almost all the English immigrants came to Texas with the 
intention of farming. Their agricultural education having been 
received in a pin-factory, dry-goods store, or some such institu- 
tion, they were ill fitted to wrestle with an ox-team or a grub- 
bin g-hoe on a Texas prairie. They claimed that the land did not 
suit them, and that it did not fit the description given of it by 
Dr. Kingsbury in London. The fact is, they did not suit the 
land ; and when they were created they were not built with a 
view to being utilized in agricultural pursuits. The principal 
trouble is, not that the soil and climate are not all they were 
represented to be, but that, when the barons wrung from King 
John the Magna Charta, the English people acquired the con- 
stitutional right to grumble. From that day until the present 
time, whenever an Englishman abroad is afflicted with any 
trouble of mind, body, or estate, he flies to pen, ink, and paper 
as readily as a good Catholic does to holy water when the devil 
is about, and writes an eloquent and indignant letter to a Lon- 
don paper, stating his grievance, and hinting, that, if his govern- 
ment does not take immediate action, he shall consider its 
foreign policy a failure. It does not make any particular dif- 
ference what the grievance is — sometimes his digestion is 
injured, or his boots are too tight, or the waiter at the hotel has 
not addressed him by his proper title. At all events, every 
Englishman abroad has a grievance, and it would be positively 
cruel to deprive him of it. 

An Englishman who has been in Texas ten days will impart, 
through the "Times," more information about the State than 
the oldest inhabitant ever dreamed of. Nobody can claim to 
know any thing about Texas until he has read the letter of a 
disgusted English immigrant. One of these exiles has lately 



POWERFUL IMAGINATION. 195 

# 

written to an English paper, furnishing the British public with 
some alleged facts about Western Texas,' that contain a great 
amount of information to the people of Texas, who would other- 
wise hav^ no facilities for obtaining that knowledge of the soil, 
climate, and productions, that the Englishman obtains during a 
two-hundred-mile trip on an immigrant-car. He alleges as fol- 
lows : '' Southern Texas is a hot, swampy country, famous for 
mosquitoes and alligators." His allegations do not amount to 
much. In fact, he himself is not much of an allegator ; for, in 
a few lines farther on, in the same letter, he proceeds to saw 
off his own legs by stating that '' Texas has a very dry climate, 
where drouths prevail to a dreadful extent." Probably this 
English farmer never attempted to raise mosquitoes; for, if he 
had, he certainly would know that it would be almost as hard 
to raise a mosquito or an alligator in ''a very dry climate, 
where drouths prevail to a dreadful extent," as to raise an 
Englishman without any brag or growl in him, in the moist 
climate of the British Isles. 

One sturdy Briton wrote to the Galveston " News " lately, 
stating that Dr. Kingsbury should be recalled from England, 
because he had maintained an oppressive silence regarding the 
mosquito, when describing the wild game of Texas to the 
credulous British public. This Briton's letter justified the im- 
putation, that, after gorging himself with mince-pies and plum- 
pudding, he had a fearful and distorted dream of the conflict 
between. St. George and the dragon, which he gave to the 
public as his own actual experience with a mosquito. 

The Englishman creates and minutely describes insects that 
nobody else in Texas was ever able to see, and he brings to 
light more snakes and venomous reptiles with his pen than St. 
Patrick is said to have driven out of Ireland with his crook. 
There is doubtless a great deal of crookedness in both ac- 
counts. 

The mosquito is certainly a ferocious beast, and well calcu- 
lated to blanch the cheek of a burly Briton ; but I have never 
heard of any one being carried away by a mosquito, although I 
have known Englishmen to be carried away by their own pow- 
erful imaginations and prejudices. 



196 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

In Texas there is a branch of the same signal-service that 
furnishes England with her weather ; and the officer in charge 
reports as follows : — 

RAINFALL IN TEXAS. 
Year. Inches. 

1868 . 46.60 

1869 49-03 

1870 35-12 

1871 34-86 

1872 • . . . 34.21 

1877 39-56 

1878 39-69 

This gives a mean yearly rainfall of 39.87 inches. 

Interested parties have from time to time represented that 
Western Texas was full of wild and lawless characters, and 
was a part of the country where rain never fell. These mis- 
representations have done much to retard immigration. In 
connection with this, I present the reader, on the following 
page, with a facsimile of an envelope covering a letter received 
from a friend of mine. 

New Philadelphia, a station on the G., H., and S.A. Railroad, 
is the place where most of the immigrants have been sent to. 
The soil at New Philadelphia is so deep that I am afraid to 
state the actual depth, for fear I might be accused of writing 
in the interest of the G., H., and S.A. Railroad. I have had 
no dealings with the officials of the road, not even a passing 
acquaintance with any of them. I am compelled to state, how- 
ever, that along that line of road an energetic man would find 
many excellent places where he could raise a disturbance with 
a plough, that would result in a very productive farm ; but 
the soil that the Englishman is looking for is a kind that will 
produce two crops a year with the slightest expenditure of 
muscular force on his part, — the tickle-it- with-a-hoe-laugh-with- 
a-harvest sort of soil. 

There are at New Philadelphia, and at other points along 
the " Sunset Route," a number of English farmers who have 
purchased land, and who have gone to work in earnest. If 
they only continue as they have begun, and work six days in 



ENGLISH IMMIGRANTS, 



197 



the week, they will be able in a short time to buy more land, 
and have money to their credit in the bank. It is, however, an 
undeniable 
fact, that most 
of the English 
immigrants 
are remarka- 
ble for their 
antipathy t o 
any thing sav- 
oring of hard 
work ; while 
on the other 
hand, in blas- 
pheming the 
State of Tex- 
as, and Kings- 
bury, the al- 
leged author 
of all their 
woes, they dis- 
play an untir- 
ing energy 
and eloquence 
that are truly 
wonderful. It 
is difficult 
to imagine 
the sublime 
height of elo- 
quence they 
might soar to, 
if they only had 
a real griev- 
ance as a text. 

It is quite a misfortune to the human race that our first 
parents were not a couple of English immigrants. Satan would 
have had a nice time trying to infuse enough energy into them 




198 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



to induce them to steal an apple. Probably if he had plucked 
the forbidden fruit, pared it carefully, and presented it to them 
on a china plate, they might have sinned ; but as for them tak- 
ing the apple off the tree themselves, without a step-ladder, it 
would have been out of the question. 

Two Englishmen go into the store at Weimar. 

" Aw, 'ave you got henny Lea & Perrin's Wor'ster sauce } " 

*' No : don't keep it, sir ; never heard of it." 

" Never 'eard of it ! By Jove, what a blawsted country ! " 

Turning to the other exile, 




u > 



Arry, let's go back to hold 
Hengland." 

The English get home- 
sick because they cannot get 
gooseberries and 'arf-and- 
'arf and Lea& Perrin's sauce, 
growing on every mesquite- 
tree in Texas. They forget 
to give any credit to the 
watermelons, the figs, and 
other good things that they 
get in Texas, and that they 
could not raise, even in a 
hothouse, in England. 

The English immigrant 
misses the shady lanes, the 
ivy-clad ruins, and the spires 
of the village church peep- 
ing through the trees : he experiences considerable difficulty in 
finding these things on the prairie near New Philadelphia. 
He misses all of them very much, but he is not as liable to 
miss his meals as he would be in England. There is at 
New Philadelphia no shady lane with violets nestling under 
the hedgerows, and there is also no landlord there for him 
to call ** master : " so it is no wonder he feels a little home- 
sick. 

During our stay at Eagle Lake, the doctor and I rode over 
to New Philadelphia, a distance of eight miles. We started 



'"ARRY, LET'S GO BACK TO HOLD HENGLAND.' 



RIDING IN A CIRCLE. 199 

after breakfast, and jogged along for an hour or two, enjoying 
the fresh morning air. We might have gone seven or eigh't 
miles, but there was no outward sign of our progress. The 
landscape never changed. The same dreary, mon^'otonous ex- 
panse of prairie was spread out on either hand. The distant 
clumps of trees seemed to be just as far off as when we started, 
and even the few cattle that browsed near by seemed to differ- 
in no particular from those we had seen several miles back. 
Said the doctor, who had been in a brown study for some min- 
utes, '' Don't this remind you of those able-bodied idiots who 
walk around in a ring for half the gate-money .? What I mean 
is, that we see the same thing all the time, and there is no end 
to it. We are like the fellow who forgot to untie his boat, and 
rowed all night, to find in the morning that he was in the same 
spot where he was when he started." 

Little did the doctor think how near he came to handling 
the literal truth when he made that remark. 

Another hour, and still no apparent change in the scenery. 
We came to a depression in the ground called a hog-wallow, 
filled with stagnant water. We stepped aside to give our 
horses a drink, and — Great Vasco di Gama, circumnavigator 
of the world ! there we were on the exact spot where we had 
stopped to water our horses two hours before. We had done 

what inexperienced travellers have often done on the prairies, 

travelled in a circle. While we stood dazed with the absurdity 
of the situation, a negro came riding along. We learned from 
hmi that we were only four miles from where we had started in 
the morning. The negro was going to New Philadelphia, and 
volunteered to guide us. After travelling several miles, houses 
began to appear on the horizon ; and finally we pulled up in 
front of the railroad-depot, behind which loomed up three hay- 
stacks. To the left, at a distance of half a mile, appeared 
eight or ten two-story houses precisely alike, at equal distances 
from each other, and built in a straight row. About four miles 
off on the prairie appeared a few trees, and in the near distance 
a solitary cow stood in a meditative attitude chewing her cud. 
This was New Philadelphia, 

Our negro guide apologized for the size of the town. He 



200 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

said, '' It looks littler dan it ar, becaze dar's such a mighty 
sight ob land lyin' around wid no houses on it." 

As we stood on the platform of the depot, and looked 
around, we noticed upon the horizon a small dark spot. It in- 
creased in size as we watched it. It was approaching us, and 
growing larger as it came nearer. Soon the outlines of a loco- 
motive could be discovered. A loud, prolonged whistle, a buzz- 
ing vibration of rails, a trembling of the solid earth, sseesh ! 
sseesh ! sseesh ! from the steam-pipes, and the express-train 
anchors in front of the depot. Immediately there is a wild rush 
of excited passengers : they abandon the train with reckless 
haste. A brass band, consisting of one solitary instrument 
called a gong, welcomes the passengers. They rush into the 
house in front of which the band plays. Soon they begin to 
come out. I ask the first one who comes out, wiping his 
mouth, what he got in there. "Got hungry," he replies, as 
he jumps on the car-platform. Then I find out, by a sort of 
inspiration, that this is the station where the passengers dine. 

In less than ten minutes from the time the train arrived, the 
banquet-hall is deserted, and the last reveller has filed past the 
proprietor, who stands at the door with the stern devotion to 
duty of a Roman sentinel, and takes up a collection from each 
gorged guest. There is evidently collusion between the con- 
ductor and the colonel in charge of the collation ; for, if the 
former were to allow the passengers ten minutes more, they 
would eat up all the provisions on the premises, and begin on 
the haystacks. 

From what we had heard and read, we had conceived the 
idea, that when the English immigrant was not sighing, and 
gazing with tear-dimmed eye in the direction of old England, 
he was at the railway-station, with blood in his eye and a full- 
grown club in his hand, waiting for the chance of meeting Dr. 
Kingsbury on his return from England. When the train de- 
parted, we noticed a florid-faced man, with a gun on his shoulder, 
standing on the platform. The doctor suggested that perhaps 
he was an English delegate deputed to watch the trains, and 
destroy any one looking like Dr. Kingsbury or an immigration- 
agent. Said the doctor, " Let us talk with him." 



INTERVIEWING AN IMMIGRANT. 201 

We sauntered up ; and the doctor said, *' My friend, you 
seem as if the country agreed with you ; but don't you wish 
for a sight of the verdant meadows of old England, with the 
murmuring brooks meandering through them ? Don't you long 
for one of the pleasant evenings, when, after the day's work 
was over, you used to sit under your cottage eaves in the twi- 
light hour, while the trill of the nightingale's song came from 
the neighboring grove, and the perfume of the woodbine filled 
the air? Don't you long for just one sight of your far-away 
home?" The doctor took the hiccough at this point, and 
paused for lack of wind. The man said, — 

"The divil along! for it's meself that doesn't want to go 
back to the ould counthry as long as they pay a dollar and siv- 
inty-five cents a day for spikin' ties." 

I told the doctor that he might have known — in fact, a blind 
man would have known — that the fellow was not English. 
The doctor intimated that I was very gifted and smart in find- 
ing out things after somebody told me of them. I told him 
that I did not claim to possess any more penetration in such 
matters than my neighbors, but that although we had made a 
mistake in supposing that at New Philadelphia we would find 
the happy English peasantry dancing around the Maypole, sing- 
ing their merry roundelays on the village green, yet still I 
thought we would yet find some of the sons of Albion's Isle 
without going far. '^ Yonder," said I, ''sits one of them on 
the fence. Don't you see, by his sad, mournful look, that he is 
an English yeoman musing over distant scenes, and contrast- 
ing the corn-bread-and-coffee diet of to-day with the roast beef, 
cheese, and tankard of ale, of the past ? A straw may show how 
the wind blows ; and the manner in which that man chews the 
straw, that you observe in his mouth, shows plainly that he is a 
Briton, and, as a Briton, never, never will become acclimated." 

"Well, try what you can make out of him," said the doctor 
in a sneering tone. 

"My good man," said I, as we approached him, "how fares 
it with you ? Do you find the products, institutions, and civili- 
zation of this free country compare favorably with those to be 
found under a monarchical form of government ? " 



202 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



He stopped dangling his legs, spat out the straw, and said, — 
" Ich verstehe Sie nicht." 

The doctor and I went over to the hotel, ate some dinner in 
silence, and returned to Eagle Lake ; and, since then, neither 




"ICH VERSTEHE SIE NICHT. 



of US has ventured to say any thing to the other about English 



immigrants. 



There is a man up in Lynn, Mass., who has been putting 
what he calls ''simple and concise questions" to the San An- 
tonio Immigration Aid Association. The questions are pub- 
lished in the "Texas Sun." He asks such conundrums as the 
following : — 

" How is your timber } " 



''SIMPLE AND CONCISE'' ANSWERS. 203 

** What kind of houses do you live in ? " 

"What is the character of your soil ?" 

" Is property safe with you ? " 

" Is your society good ? " 

He indulges in a whole column of such personalities, with 
interrogation-points after them. 

The doctor said that the San Antonio I. A. A. might not 
have time to impart as much knowledge as the man in Massa- 
chusetts was evidently suffering for. He muttered something 
about Solomon having advised how such persons should be 
answered, and took a sheet of foolscap, and flooded Massachu- 
setts with ''simple and concise " answers. Then the man in 
Massachusetts wrote back on a postal-card, and, in a " simple 
and concise" manner, said that he (the doctor) was a ''blamed 
fool." 

The following are some of the man's questions and the doc- 
tor's answers : — 

Q. Is water plenty ? and how do you get it .? 

A. Plenty. We mostly get ours from the barkeeper in a 
separate glass, but some people dip it up out of the creek in 
a bucket. 

Q. How are your titles .'* 

A. All sorts, but "colonel" and "judge" in the majority. 

Q. Are the people intelligent } 

A. Yes : every one of them claims to know more than the 
governor of the State. 

Q. How is the weather .^ 

A. It is rather plenty at present, but more of it in winter 
than in summer. 

If the doctor does not quit' tampering with the immigration 
business, he will certainly get discouraged, sooner or later, to 
say the least of it. 

We returned to Eagle Lake in the evening, and next day 
left the place where we had spent several pleasant days. Dur- 
ing the next three days we rode fifty miles across the prairies, 
passing occasionally through woods and across creeks. Now 
the soil would be sandy : again it would be of what is called 
the "black waxy" sort. Passing solitary farms and ranches, 



204 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

and riding through the towns of Columbus and Weimar, we 
arrived in Schulenberg in the evening. 

Schulenberg is a small town on the railroad. Almost all the 
inhabitants are Germans, — thrifty, hard-working people, who 
attend to their own business with more enthusiasm than the 
native American can ever be accused of doing. 

They have a mayor and a board of aldermen in Schulenberg, 
and city ordinances are made by the aldermen. Those that 
are not vetoed by the mayor are broken by vagrant hogs, stray 
cows, and inebriated cowboys. There is a newspaper published 
in Schulenberg. Its columns are devoted to the mayor's procla- 
mations, the railroad time-table, patent-medicine advertisements, 
and reports of aldermanic discussions on municipal affairs. 
The absorbing topic at Schulenberg, when we were there, was, 
" Shall we continue to employ our present efficient police-force } " 

The ''efficient police-force" consisted of a large man, whose 
clothes had apparently been made for a smaller policeman. He 
was armed with a very large revolver. His trousers did not 
quite reach his ankles : they had evidently been pulled before 
they were ripe. 

Schulenberg's police-force reminded me of the Texas navy 
as it existed in the first days of the Republic of Texas, — 1836 
to 1838. It consisted of the following vessels : — 

Tons. Guns. 

"The Invincible" 125 8 

"The Liberty" 60 4 " 

"The Brutus" 125 8 

"The Independence" 120 8 

Totals 430 28 

In 1836 "The Liberty" was sold to defray her expenses. In 
the fall of the same year "The Invincible" and " The Brutus," 
after being repaired in New York, would have met the same 
fate but for the generosity of a noble friend of Texas, — Mr. 
Swartwout, collector of customs at the port of New York, — 
who paid the liabilities of the two vessels out of his own 
pocket. Just think of it ! Brace up your mental faculties, and 
unlimber your bump of the marvellous, that you may be ena- 
bled to grasp the thought. Get a fan and cool yourself off 



THE TEXAS NAVY. 205 

before you attempt to realize the more than princely munifi- 
cence of the generous lunatic. A collector of customs putting 
his hand into his own pocket, and paying for the repairs of one- 
half the navy of a republic, — a republic larger than France! 
And yet there is not an unfinished monument erected to his 
memory, not even a Texas railroad-depot named in his honor. 

It is absurdly amusing to read in the records of the naval 
department — preserved in the archives at Austin — the high- 
sounding orders of the department. The style and tone that 
those eight-gun sloops assumed must have been appalling ; and 
we can faintly imagine with what celerity the Mexican war-ships 
abbreviated their cruise in the Gulf, and left the borders of 
Texas, when the officer in charge learned, that, '' By orders from 
the department, Commander H. L. Thompson will assume com- 
mand of 'The Invincible,'" and that " Commander J. D. Boy- 
Ian, in 'The Brutus,' accompanied by the honorable secretary 
of the navy, S. Rhodes Fisher, will cruise in the Gulf." 

I find in a list of the officers of the Texas navy the names of 
three commanders, four captains, twenty-two lieutenants, eight 
surgeons, four pursers, eight midshipmen, besides five officers 
of the marine-corps. Wonder where the common sailors found 
room to man the compass, box the to'gallan'sl, tackle the hard- 
tack, and perform other necessary nautical manoeuvres, when 
the eight surgeons and twenty-two lieutenants were all on board ! 

In an engagement with the Mexican brig-of-war " Liberta- 
dor," in April, 1837, ''The Independence " was captured, and 
taken to Brazos Santiago. In August, 1837, "The Invincible" 
went to pieces off Galveston Island in a squall. In the same 
year, during the equinoctial gale, "The Brutus " was lost in 
Galveston Harbor ; and the Repubhc of Texas was without a 
navy. That magnificent officer, and ex-officio tar, the honorable 
the secretary of the navy, was out of a situation; and the 
commanders, captains, and lieutenants doubtless went back to 
their old business, and once more applied their unofficial ener- 
gies to the capture of the unobtrusive oyster. 

While on this subject, and while we rest a day in the quiet 
village of Schulenberg, I shall, in the next chapter, give the 
reader a brief outline of the history of Texas. 



206 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XVI. 




KNOWN history of Texas be- 
gins with the establishment 
of missions at El Paso in 
the year 1582. These mis- 
sions were established by 
the Spanish, Texas being 
then claimed by the king 
of Spain. For some time 
Texas was very slow in set- 
tling up ; which, even at the present day, is a leading character- 
istic of a great many of its inhabitants. The Texas missions 
were under the supervision of monks of the order of St. 
Francis of Assisi. In conquering and occupying the country 
for the alleged promotion of Christianity, the Spaniards used 
monks and soldiers. The monks preached, while the soldiers 
were used as invitation committees to wait on the Indians, and 
induce them to come to meeting, and hear the good news of 
salvation. This plan worked very well indeed, and was a great 
improvement on the old-fashioned mode recommended and car- 
ried into practical effect by St. Paul. Instead of suffering 
hunger and thirst themselves, the monks deputed the ungodly 
heathen to attend to that part of the religious exercises. It 
is very difficult to imagine St. Paul prowling around Judaea, 
armed with a shotgun and a brace of pistols, while the more 
able-bodied apostles were acting as special policemen in bring- 
ing sinners to hear the glad gospel tidings ; yet that must 



THE MONK AND THE SOLDIER. 



207 



have been about the idea the aborigines acquired of the found- 
ers of the reHgion professed by the carpet-baggers, if they 
judged the founders by their successors. Thus the uniting of 
the persuasive eloquence of the priest with the more forcible 
logic of the bloodthirsty Spanish soldiers' improved fire-arms, 
was very effective : as with a double-barrelled shotgun, what 




INDIOS REDUCIDOS. 



escapes one barrel is very likely to be brought down by the 
other. 

A Spanish mission of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- 
ries consisted of a huge stone house used as a place of worship 
and as a fortress ; houses for the priests, and huts for the 
Indian converts ; several Jesuit fathers ;, a bulldog ; and an as- 



208 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



sortment of inquisitorial instruments of torture, used in the 
conversion of Indians to Christianity. 

Rev. Mr. Thrall, in his *' History of Texas," says, speaking 
of these missions, — 

"Suitable houses were built for the priests, and rude huts for the 
Indians. The fathers, with a few domestics and soldiers, took posses- 
sion ; and, by persuasion or force, Indians were induced to congregate 
in the neighborhood. They were employed in taking care of stock, and 
cultivating the ground to supply food. In return for the comparatively 
light labor, the Indians received religious instruction, food, and clothing. 
These domesticated Indians were called ' Indios reducidos.' " 

** Reduced Indians " was a very appropriate name, as all the 

names given by the gentle 
Spanish pioneers were. When 
these holy men failed to per- 
suade the Indians to adopt 
their religious views, they put 
them in a persuasive instru- 
ment called " a virgin." This 
was a hollow iron overcoat, 
that fitted tightly around 
every part of a man's body, 
— but could be screwed much 
tighter, — so much so, as to 
become uncomfortable, to say 
the least of it. That was 
how the Indians were reduced. Nine out of every ten of those 
operated on were converted after a certain number of turns of 
the screw : the other was usually spoiled in the process of 
conversion, and was useful only as an awful example. 

Occasionally an Indian would have doubts and misgivings as 
to whether he was really converted or not ; then the priests 
would tie a little cord around the doubter's thumbs, attach the 
other end to a rafter in the church roof, and thus hang him 
up until light broke into his soul, and all his doubts were re- 
moved. Thus did these good fathers labor, from the rising of 
the sun until the going down thereof, and raise blisters on their 




CONVERTING INDIANS BY MACHINERY, 



CHE-QUA-QUE-KO. 209 

hands converting the heathen. If an Indian survived being con- 
verted, and regained sufificient health to amuse himself digging 
irrigating ditches, he was permitted to enjoy himself 
that way. He was even encouraged to keep up this 
kind of revelry by the priests themselves, or by the 
soldiers, aided by long-handled whips. When night 
came, and the gangs of Indian merry-makers had 
become cloyed with the frivolity of throwing dirt 
over their heads with short-handled spades, they were 
locked up in their quarters, so that in the morning 
they might be on hand to resume their round of dis- 
sipation. Thus they whiled the happy hours away. 
The historian says, ''The founders of these missions 
were noted for their religious zeal and enterprise." 
After the Indians had been — by torture, starvation, ^ 
and bad treatment — so effectually reduced that thev ^ 

•' ■ -^ A DOUBTER. 

did not dare to scratch their heads without a papal 
dispensation, the old monks, merely to keep their hands in, 
would once in a while celebrate a saint's day by practising 
with a thumb-screw on some old Indian who was too feeble 
to dig ditches or chop wood. 

There is said to be among the archives of the Franciscan 
order at Rome the record of the trial of the Apache Indian 
Che-qua-que-ko (Fish-out-of-the-water). He was accused of 
sneering at religion, tried, found guilty, and burned to death 
at Mission Concepcion in the year 1734. He had been placed 
in charge of a herd of sheep, which was driven up to the 
mission every night. When the reverend father, Don Domingo 
de Dios, who was the superintendent of the live-stock depart- 
ment, counted the sheep, he found that one was missing, and 
he bitterly upbraided the shepherd. The poor Indian, falling 
on his knees before the haughty prelate, cried, " Take it out 
of my daily wages, most reverend father." 

" Varlet, you know you get no daily wages," roared the en- 
raged ecclesiastic, looking around for a barrel-stave. 

" I mean deduct it from the stripes I receive daily." 

This was trifling with sacred things, and was a crime of the 
same degree of darkness as blaspheming the holy church itself. 
14 



2IO 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 




His reverence laid aside the barrel-stave, it being unequal to 
the task of properly emphasizing his feelings. Poor Che-qua- 
que-ko, v^ho had only spoken in an honest and innocent way, 
and who had no more sarcasm in him than a hitching-post, was 
turned over to the committee on thumb-screws and tombstones. 

There were two kinds of 
Indians, — those who staid 
about the missions, and al- 
lowed themselves to be con- 
verted ; and those who staid 
up in the mountains, and 
scoffed at the Spanish plan 
of salvation. The tame 
Indians probably did what 
they could, under the cir- 
cumstances, in multiplying 
their kind ; but they could 
not keep up with the reduc- 
tion of the army of martyrs 
that was going on. The 
poor Indian had a hard time of it. If he sneezed without first 
consulting his spiritual adviser, he was rebuked with a trunk- 
strap. If it did not rain when the padre s corn needed moist- 
ure, the priests would put the blame on the Indians, and say, 
" How can we expect to be blessed with growing showers while 
we keep such a set of worthless savages eating the bread of 
idleness.'* These cursed Indians need reducing." 

Then they would reduce them to the lowest numerators and 
denominators, as it were. Thus it will be seen that the In- 
dian's life at the mission was not one of unalloyed pleasure. If 
he staid in the mission, he was liable to reduction, or to be 
drafted for ditch-duty ; and, if he left it, the Indians from the 
mountains were waiting outside to fill him full of arrows, or 
pry him open with a hatchet. It may be observed, that in 
these particulars the wild Indian was almost as efficient as the 
Spanish missionary ; although, unlike the latter, he did not ex- 
pect to be rewarded for his deviltries in the hereafter. 

All the missions were situated on or near some river. From 



PADRE, INDIAN, AND BARREL-STAVE. 



OUR LADY OF GUADALOUPE. 21 1 

the river the irrigating-ditches extended over large areas, and 
made fertile vast quantities of land, the products of which en- 
riched the missions and those connected with them. As the 
missions grew and prospered, immigrants from Mexico and Spain 
settled around them. Some of them developed into presidios, 
and one or two into cities of wealth, and centres of considerable 
commerce. Between the years 1690 and 171 5, most of the 
missions in Texas were founded, and named as follows : — 

Antonio de Valero, Nuestra Senora de Guadaloupe, La Puris- 
sima Concepcion, La Espada, San Juan, San Jose, San Saba, 
the Alamo. Afterwards were founded the missions at Nacos:- 
doches and that of Nuestra Senora de Refugio (Our Lady of 
Refuge). Some of them were located on the San Antonio 
River, within a few miles of each other and of the village of 
San Fernando (now known as the city of San Antonio). A 
number of these mission-buildings have disappeared. Some of 
them — notably those near San Antonio — are still in an excel- 
lent state of preservation. 

During the hundred or more years that these missions flour- 
ished, a controversy as to the ownership of Texas was kept up 
by the kings of France and Spain, and occasionally some un- 
converted tribe of Indians had something to say about it ; but 
the pious and zealous monks of our Lady of Guadaloupe, and 
of the other missions, still labored among the Indians. The 
good work went on ; and thousands of the aborigines were added 
to the fold, besides hundreds who died while undergoing the 
process of conversion. 

During this period buffalo, deer, and wild horses roamed in 
countless herds over the broad prairies of this thinly settled ter- 
ritory. At the close of the eighteenth century the province 
had an established population of about six thousand, exclusive 
of Indians. Texas was then connected with Mexico under the 
dominion of a Spanish viceroy. About this time the Spanish 
showed evidences of jealousy toward the people of the United 
States. They refused to allow any citizen of the United States 
to enter Spanish territory, unless he came "■ for the purpose of 
scientific exploration." Their edict to this effect did much to 
foster scientific studies among the inhabitants of the States 



212 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

bordering on Texas : at least, we deduce as much from what 
we have learned of the history of the times. 

In the year 1800 Philip Nolan, and eighteen other scientific 
horse-thieves, came into Texas from Mississippi. The viceroy 
hearing of their advent, and believing that they were more ex- 
pert in the lassoing of mustangs than in scientific investiga- 
tions, had them arrested. One escaped : the others were carried 
in chains to Mexico, tried, and condemned to a .period of en- 
forced honesty in some Mexican prison. As they were never 
heard of again by any of their friends in the United States, it is 
probable that the Spanish authorities turned them over to some 
of the missions for conversion. A man once told me that the 
old Spaniards loved their enemies so much that they would 
rather see them die than that they should not be converted to 
the Catholic faith. 

The ancient Spaniards were nothing if not religious. They 
would rather proselyte an Indian than do any thing else. Away 
back in 15 19, Hernando Cortez, on the eve of his departure for 
the conquest of Mexico, invoked on his enterprise the blessings 
of his patron saint, St. Peter ; and, unfurling a banner, he 
pointed to the emblazoned figure of a crimson cross, and the 
motto, " Friends, let us follow the cross, and under this sign, 
if we have faith, we shall conquer." 

In 1520 Alvarado, a lieutenant of Cortez, sacrificed six 
hundred Aztecs at the city of Mexico, and, as soon as he got 
through with the entertainment, offered up a Te Deiim. 

The failure of the Nolan expedition did not deter other 
scientists from the United States from visiting Texas. Be- 
tween 1800 and 1820 many learned men explored its villages 
and settlements, and, probably for purposes of scientific inves- 
tigation, carried away with them old coins, quaint silver orna- 
ments from the churches, and some of the finest specimens 
of the Spanish mustang they could obtain. About this time 
science became distasteful to the Spanish inhabitants of Texas ; 
and they not only protested against the trespass of their 
domains by the people of the United States, but they took 
up arms against the intruders. Many fierce conflicts ensued ; 
sometimes terminating in favor of the Spanish, sometimes 



AN EMPRESARIO. 213 

resulting in a triumph for science. The Americans allied 
themselves with the Mexican Republicans, and fought against 
the Royalists. Science flourished for a time, but about 1814 
there came reverses. History and the old inhabitants tell me 
that in that year, out of eight hundred and fifty Americans 
who took part in the battle of Medina, only ninety-five were 
known to have escaped to the United States. 

In 1820 the scientific explorations, and the disputes attend- 
ing them, had almost depopulated Texas. 

The Mexican Government, in 1821, began to encourage immi- 
gration to Texas. It guaranteed to foreigners of good moral 
character, settling in Texas, security for their persons and prop- 
erty. It gave to each family a grant of one league (4,428 acres) 
and one labor (17; acres) of land. A single man got one-third 
of a league : this was increased to a league when he married. 
The only condition required of the colonist was, that he should 
occupy and cultivate some of the land within six years, that he 
should pay for the stamps on the deed, and that he should be- 
come a member of the Catholic Church. 

Here we see the piety of these good people, and their love 
for man's salvation, cropping out again. '' Save them cheaply if 
possible, but save them anyhow," was their motto. These men 
who ruled the destinies of Texas evidently understood human 
nature, and were well versed in the peculiarities of national 
character. Knowing that the monkish mode of converting the 
Indian would not be successful with the Anglo-American, they 
" persuaded " the latter with a league and a labor of land, — two 
ways to bring about the same result. The gringo made just as 
good a Catholic as the Indian. The conversion was as deep and 
lasting in the one case as in the other. 

To the man who brought a colony of a hundred families to 
Texas was granted five leagues and five labors of land. The 
title of the land cost him nothing; and they calied him an 
empresario, and did not charge him any thing for that title 
either. A man's wife got three hundred and twenty acres ; 
each child, a hundred and sixty acres ; and for each slave was 
allowed eighty acres. Subsidies of land were given to the pro- 
jectors of all beneficial enterprises tending to the good of the 



214 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

country, and the propagation of the Most Holy Catholic Faith. 
If a colonist built a saw-mill, the government deeded him half 
a league of land : if he killed a heretic, and produced the Prot- 
estant ears of the departed in proof of the holy deed, he got a 
league and labor of land, and was appointed to the office of 
alcalde. These were flush times in the real-estate business. 
Every one was a property-owner, and there were no taxes to 
pay. A colonist might not have a shirt on his back, but he was 
sure to have deeds to a few thousand acres of land in some 
crevice of his clothes. Schoolboys — or rather boys who would 
have been schoolboys, had there been any schools in Texas — 
traded their one-hundred-and-sixty-acre patents for second-hand 
Barlow knives, and other portable property. Speculative boys 
were in the habit of borrowing half a dozen marbles as a starter 
in a projected game, and of putting up as collateral security a 
land-grant deed with a big red seal in the corner. 

Not long ago an old pioneer, who had lived in Texas in the 
days of the early colonists, was boasting of the good old times. 
"Why, sir," said he, "I was once offered a league of land for 
a pair of old boots." 

*' Didn't you take it } " said the party he was talking to. 

*'No, sir! I didn't." 

'* No-account land, I reckon } " 

** Why, bless your heart, sir ! it was the best piece of land 
out-doors, — grass five feet high, a clear stream of water running 
through it, and an undeveloped silver-mine in one corner." 

*' And why in the thunder did you not make the trade .'* " said 
the other. 

" Because," said the old man in a sad and regretful tone of 
voice — " because I — I didn't have the boots." 

In those days no one was too poor to own a farm, with a calf- 
pen of a few thousand acres back of it ; and yet men who 
could walk fall day in a straight line, and not get outside the 
boundary of their own property, did not probably see as much 
money in a year as would purchase a lot in an Eastern cemetery. 
The same man who would toil for a week, hauling a load of 
freight ninety miles with an ox-team, for a ten-dollar gold piece, 
would think nothing of squandering a few leagues of land in 



ANCIENT SPANISH DOCUMENT, 215 

betting on a cock-fight next Sunday morning. The colonist 
who owned a barrel of flour and a coon-dog was richer, and 
assumed more aristocratic airs, than he who had nothing but 
five leagues and labors of land. There was very little money in 
Texas. Cattle was the circulating-medium of the country. A 
year-old steer was the basis of calculation in all matters of trade. 
The following translation from the ancient Spanish records 
of Texas, found among the archives of Bexar, gives the market- 
values of yearling bulls : — 

Royal Presidio of San Antonio de Bexar, 
Feb. 17, 1738. 

Considering that the room appropriated at the time of the erection 
of this presidio for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 
and now used as a parish church, has no tabernacle, font, or other orna- 
ments requisite for decorum of the ministrations of the sacraments : 
therefore, in view of the representation to the effect laid before me by 
Padre Don Juan Rezio de Leon, curate, vicar, and ecclesiastical justice 
of the town of Fernando (without this presidio), I have resolved jointly 
with the justice and town council, for the better service of God, the pro- 
motion of divine worship, and public convenience, that a parish church 
shall be erected under the invocation of the Virgin Candelaria and our 
Lady of Guadaloupe, for whom this population profess a peculiar devotion. 

To this effect, and with the assistance of said curate and ecclesiastical 
justice, the justice and council of this town, I proceed to the selection 
of the most eligible site for the erection of said church, which site was 
marked out in a location convenient to both the residents in the town 
and the garrison ; and there being no other resources for the construction 
of this edifice but the donations that may be offered by pious souls of 
both localities, I hereby ordain that the justice and town council of San 
Fernando shall appoint to collect the donations, and with the proceeds 
thereof begin and superintend the work of construction, two trustees, 
uniting in their persons both requisites of zeal for the service of God, 
and skill, shall faithfully appropriate the revenue they may obtain to the 
completion of our holy undertaking, and give correct account, in due 
form, of their proceedings to the justice and town council. 

Thus I, Prudencio de Oribio Barterra, Governor and Captain-General 
of the province of Texas and New Philipines, have decreed and signed, 
to which I testify. Prudencio de Oribio Barterra. 

Signed before me, 
Francisco Joseph de Arocha. 



2l6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



Town of San Fernando, Government of Texas and New Philipines, 
the 19th day of February, r738. 

We, the justice and town council, — of which are members Manuel de 
Nis and Ignacio Lorenzo de Armas (both ordinary alcaldes), and the 
ayidores, Juan Leal Goraz, Juan Curbelo, Antonio de Los Santos, Juan 
Leal Albarez, Vicente Albarez Travieso, and Antonio Rodriguez, — in 
pursuance of the above decree, do hereby appoint the chief alguazie of 
this town (Vicente Albarez Travieso and Francisco Joseph de Arocha) 
trustees for the construction of a parish church, under the invocation of 
the Virgin Candelaria and our Lady of Guadaloupe, which construction 
is to be completed by the means of donations offered by the residents 
of this town and the presidio of San Antonio de Bexar, on a site already 
appointed. Said church shall be thirty varas in length, and six in 
breadth, including vestry and baptismal chapel : its principal door open- 
ing to the east, and pointing on the plaza of this town ; its back door, to 
the west, and fronting on the plaza of the presidio. 

The following amounts were received by the aforesaid trustees, herein- 
before mentioned, residents of said town and the presidio of San Antonio, 
to be appropriated to the erection of a parish church ; to wit (here follows 
the names and amounts subscribed), — 

Don Prudencio Oribio Barterra, governor and captain-general of 
this province, ^200 ; Don Juan Ruio de Leon, curate, vicar, and eccle- 
siastical justice, ^25 ; Don Joseph de Urutia, captain of the company 
of said presidio, ^100 ; Don Manuel de Nis, ordinary alcalde of first 
vote, offered 10 cartloads of stones ; Don Ignacio Lorenzo de Armas, 
ordinary alcalde of second vote, ^10; Don Juan Leal Goraz, senior 
regidor, offered one yearling bull worth ^4 ; Don Antonio de Los 
Santos, regidor, ^10; Don Juan Leal Albarez, regidor, offered 10 
fanegas of corn at $2 each, ^20 ; Don Vicente Albarez Travieso, first 
alguazie, ^20; Don Francisco Joseph de Arocha, $10; Don Antonio 
Rodriguez Mederos, collector of the town revenues, offered 20 cardoads 
of stones ; Joseph Leal offered 2 fanegas of corn, and a yearling bull, 
worth $8 ; Patricio Rodriguez, $10 ; Francisco Delgado, ;^io ; Joseph 
Antonio Rodriguez, ^20 ; Martin Lorenzo de Armas offered one year- 
ling bull, $4 ; Antonio Ximenes offered one yearling bull, ^4 ; Bernardo 
Joseph offered one yearhng bull, ^6 ; Francisco Musquiz, ^6, etc. 

It would seem, from other statements made in this old record, 
that the illustrious and most excellent viceroy of New Spain, 
the Marquis de Casa Fuerte, was a very hard man to collect a 



THE MARQUIS DE CASA FUERTE. 



217 



subscription from ; and it is further shown, that the amounts 
subscribed did not suffice to complete the **holy undertaking." 
As the church was afterwards finished, and is now out of debt, 
we may assume that the trustees, — old Vicente Albarez Tra- 
vieso and Francisco Joseph de Arocha, — aided and abetted by 
the female society of the church of our Lady of Guadaloupe, 
and the Candelaria Mite Society, did, by means of the lonely 
oyster in the large soup-plate, entice many a dollar and yearling 
bull out of the pockets of the young men of the front end of 
the eighteenth century. 




i8 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



CHAPTER XVII. 




Stephen F. Austin, of Mis- 
souri, planted the first colony 
in Texas. Between 1822 and 
1828 a great many colonies 
were established by other par- 
ties. Austin's colony, how- 
ever, was the largest ; and he 
added to it by the introduc- 
'—- v.'- -. "^ tion of several hundred fami- 

lies brought from the United States, under subsequent con- 
tracts with the Mexican Government. 

Austin stood well with the Mexicans. Besides being an ein- 
presariOi he had the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Mexican 
army, and held the office of supreme judge. He had probably 
become a zealous Catholic, and may have conciliated the native 
Mexicans by presiding at their Sunday bull-fights. In no other 
way can we account for the honors and titles showered upon 
him. He had authority from the Mexican Government to call 
out and command the militia for the preservation of peace in 
case of an emergency. The value of this privilege was some- 
what marred by the fact that there was no militia within six 
hundred and fifty miles, and that, from the date of the emer- 
gency, it took about a month of forced marching to bring the 
militia to the emergency. 

Austin was almost as high in authority as the governor of 
the province. There was, however, a Mexican officer whose 
authority threw that of Austin considerably in the shade, — 
totally eclipsed it. This Me;^ican official was called the political 
chief. He was a sort of field-marshal, lord chancellor ; had 



THE FIRST CARPET-BAGGER. 219 

power to reverse the judge's decision, and to allow the judge to 
resign ; could imprison citizens at will, without trial, control 
the militia, and was only subordinate to the Governor in name. 
This reservoir of power received from the government the 
munificent salary of eight hundred dollars a year. He held 
office for several years, and, being of frugal and accumulative 
habits, retired from his position some half a million dollars 
richer than when he entered. This was unlike what a political 
chief would do in these modern United States of ours. 

From 1830 to 1832 the Mexican authorities had been showing 
a disposition to curtail the civil liberty of the colonists. Amer- 
icans were seized and imprisoned without cause, and many in- 
dignities were heaped upon the colonists, who were too weak 
in numbers to resist the injustice and tyranny ; but at last an 
insult was added to the injury the colonists had already impa- 
tiently borne, that caused them to rebel against the tyrannical 
yoke. 

It seems that a carpet-bagger named Bradburn, who was an 
officer in the Mexican army, and stationed at the small town of 
Liberty, in Eastern Texas, formed himself into a returning- 
board, and counted out a man named Johnson, who claimed to 
have been elected alcalde. Bradburn also disqualified all the 
members of the Ayitntamieiito of the municipality of Liberty 
by arresting them, and putting them in prison. Then he put 
William B. Travis, Patrick C. Jack, Monroe Edwards, and Sam- 
uel T. Allen in a* safe place, where they could not send cipher 
despatches to their friends, nOr in any way influence the new 
election that he held. At this election Bradburn did all the 
voting ; and the result was, that the candidates elected dM not 
meet with favor in the eyes of the colonists. The friends of 
the imprisoned official were given no chance to tamper with 
the returns from the out-lying precincts. They got angry about 
that, and then they tampered with the Mexican soldiers. They 
did it in the modern way too, — with shotguns. This is what 
the historian says about it: — 

" Two of Capt. Johnson's men — William J. Russell, and a man by the 
name of Morrison — crawled over an open prairie for about two hundred 



220 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



yards, to a point very near the fort, where they discovered two Mexican 
soldiers standing together under a lone tree near the fort. These two 
men approached to within about forty yards of the soldiers ; and, after 
taking a careful aim, both fired, — Russell with a long, heavy musket, 
charged with fifteen buckshot ; and Morrison with a rifle. And then and 
there, in the month of May, 1832, the germ of Texas liberty was planted : 
then and there the first blood was spilled ; and, as it is an historical fact, 
it may not be improper to state that W. J. Russell, and Morrison, are 
entitled to whatever credit may attach to this act." 

So we see that the germ of Texas liberty was fifteen buck- 
shot and a rifle bullet, and that the germ was planted in the 










PLANTING THE GERM OF TEXAS LIBERTY. 



bodies of two unsuspecting Mexicans, '^ standing together under 
a lone tree ; " and W. J. Russell and Morrison are immor- 
tal, and will always be associated in history with the ge.rm of 
Texas liberty. I trust they will receive, as the historian puts 
it, ''all the credit that may attach to this act." 

The causes that led to the revolt against Mexican tyranny 
are fully set forth in the Declaration of Texan Independence, 
of which the following is a copy : — 



DECLARATION OF TEXAN INDEPENDENCE. 22 1 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

MADE BY THE DELEGATES OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS, IN GENERAL CON- 
VENTION, AT WASHINGTON, ON MARCH 2, 1836. 

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, Hberty, and prop- 
erty of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for 
the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and, so far from 
being a guaranty for their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes 
an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression ; when the 
Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn 
to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature 
of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, 
from a restricted federative republic composed of sovereign States, to a 
consolidated central mihtary despotism in which every interest is disre- 
garded but that of the army and the priesthood (both the eternal ene- 
mies of civil liberty, the ever-ready minions of power, and the usual 
instruments of tyrants) ; when, long after the spirit of the constitution 
has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power that 
even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of 
the constitution discontinued, and, so far from the petitions and remon- 
strances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dun- 
geons, and mercenary armies sent forth to enforce a new government 
upon them at the point of the bayonet ; — 

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abduction 
on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is 
dissolved into its original elements : in such a crisis, the first law of nature 
— the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable right of 
the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs 
into their own hands, in extreme cases — enjoins it as a right toward 
themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such 
government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them 
from impending dangers, and to secure their welfare and happiness. 

Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the 
public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is 
therefore submitted to an impartial world in justification of the hazardous 
but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our poHtical connection 
with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among 
the nations of the earth. 

The Mexican Government, by its colonization laws, invited and in- 
duced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilder- 



2 22 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

ness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should 
continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government 
to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, — the 
United States of America. » 

In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as 
the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the 
government by Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who, having over- 
turned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, 
either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit 
to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the 
sword and the priesthood. 

It has sacrificed our welfare to the State of Coahuila, by which our 
interests have been continually depressed, through a jealous and partial 
course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by 
a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue ; and this, too, notwithstanding 
we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a 
separate State Government, and have, in accordance with the provisions 
of the national constitution, presented to the General Congress a re- 
publican constitution, which was, without a just cause, contemptuously 
rejected. 

It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for 
no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of 
our constitution, and the estabhshment of a State Government. 

It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial 
by jury, — the palladium of civil liberty, and the only safe guaranty for 
the life, liberty, and property of the citizen. 

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although 
possessed of almost boundless resources (the public domains), and 
although it is an axiom in political science, that, unless a people are 
educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil 
liberty, or the capacity for self-government. 

It has suffered the military commandants stationed among us to 
exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyranny, thus trampling upon 
the most sacred rights of the citizen, and rendering the military superior 
to the civil power. 

It has dissolved, by force of arms, the State Congress of Coahuila 
and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the 
seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right 
of representation. 

It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and 



DECLARATION OF TEXAS INDEPENDENCE. 223 

ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the interior 
for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws 
and the constitution. 

It has made piratical attacks on our commerce by commissioning 
foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and con- 
vey the property of our citizens to far distant parts for confiscation. 

It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the 
dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, 
calculated to promote the temporal interests of its human functionaries 
rather than the glory of the true and living God. 

It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to 
our defence, — the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to 
tyrannical governments. 

It has invaded our country, both by sea and by land, with the intent 
to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes, and has now a 
large mercenary army advancing to carry on against us a war of exter- 
mination. 

It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the 
tomahawk and scalping-knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defence- 
less frontiers. 

It has been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the 
contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and 
has continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and 
tyrannical government. 

These and other grievances were patiently borne by the people of 
Texas, until they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a 
virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. 
We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has 
been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic re- 
sponse has yet been made from the interior. We are therefore forced 
to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced 
in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therefor of a mili- 
tary government ; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self- 
government. 

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal 
political separation. 

We therefore, the delegates, with plenary powers of the people of 
Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for 
the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare that our 
political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and 



2 24 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, sovereign, a?td inde- 
pendejit republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes 
which properly belong to independent nations ; and^ conscious of the 
rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the 
issue to the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations. 

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names. 

Richard Ellis, 
President and Delegate f7'om Red River. 

H. L. Kimble, Secretary. 

After Russell, with his "long, heavy musket," and the ''man 
by the name of Morrison," with his rifle, planted the germ in 
the two Mexicans, there were four years in which similar agri- 
cultural pleasantries were indulged in, both by Texans and 
Mexicans ; and much planting was done by both parties before 
the plant of liberty was fully developed. The following sta- 
tistics show how the germs were cultivated : — 

MILITARY EVENTS OF TEXAS. 

Battle of Nacogdoches, Aug. 2, 1827 : Texans under Col. 
Hayden E. Edwards, with a force of 250, defeated the Mexicans 
under Col. Don Je de las Piedras, with 350. 

Fort of Velasco, commanded by Col. Don Domingo Ugar- 
techea, with 175 men, taken by the Texans under John Austin, 
with 130 men, June 26, 1832. 

In June, 1835, the Texans under Col. Travis took the garri- 
son of Anahuac under Capt. Tenora. 

Rout at Gonzales, of a detachment of cavalry from the 
Mexican garrison at Bexar, Oct. i, 1835. 

Capture of Goliad, under Sandoval, by Capt. Collingsworth, 
with 50 men, Oct. 9, 1835. 

Battle of Concepcion, near Bexar : 450 Mexicans defeated by 
Bowie and Fannin, with only 92 men. 

The Grass Fight, near Bexar : 400 Mexicans retreated from 
200 Texans, Nov. 8, 1835. 

Attack upon San Antonio de Bexar: 1,400 Mexicans under 
Gen. Cos surrendered to the Texans, Dec. 10, 1835. 



MILITARY EVENTS. 225 

The town of Bexar taken by the Mexicans, and the Texans 
retired into the Alamo, Feb. 21, 1836. 

Retreat of Gen. Houston from Gonzales, March 10, 1836. 

Assault of the Alamo by Santa Anna : garrison put to the 
sword, March 6, 1836. 

Mexicans defeated in the first fight of the *' Mission del 
Refugio " by the Texans under Capt. King, March 9, 1836. 

Expedition against Matamoras, under Johnson Grant, etc. : 
proved an entire failure, January, 1836. 

Second fight of "Mission del Refugio:" Col. Ward attacked 
and drove back a large body of Mexicans, March 10, 1836. 

Ward's retreat from the Refugio, March 11, 1836; sur- 
rendered, 24th ; massacred on the 28th. 

Defeat of Fannin, with 415 men, and all massacred by the 
Mexicans, March 19, 1836. 

San Felipe de Austin burned by the Texans, March 31, 
1836. 

Harrisburg burned by the Mexicans, April 20, 1836. 

New Washington burned by the Mexicans, April 20, 1836. 

Battle of San Jacinto : 750 Texans under Gen. Houston de- 
feated the Mexicans under Santa Anna, with about 1,600 men, 
killing upwards of 750, and taking the remainder, with Santa 
Anna himself, prisoners, April 21, 1836. 

Retreat of the Mexicans beyond the frontier of Texas, April, 
24, 1836. 

It will be seen, by the figures given above, that the struggle 
ended with the battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. When 
Santa Anna was taken prisoner, and wanted to purchase his 
freedom, he said to Gen. Sam Houston, ''You can afford to 
be generous : you' have conquered the Napoleon of the West." 

At least Santa Anna is said to have unburdened himself of 
those egotistical words ; but then, this is only history, and I 
cannot, therefore, endanger my reputation for veracity by 
vouching for its truth. We do not know, nowadays, how much 
of the "truth of history" to believe; and probably it maybe' 
questioned whether Santa Anna did, or did not, make use of the 
words quoted, as the authorship of the memorable saying at- 
15 



226 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

tributed to Louis XIV. — "The State! I am the State!" — is 
questioned. 

In 1836 Texas became a republic. On the 23d of October 
of that year, Gen. Sam Houston was installed president of the 
republic. The population of Texas was then estimated at 
^2,670, — Anglo-Americans, 30,000 ; Mexicans, 3,470; Indians, 
14,200; negroes, 5,000. 

In 1836 Texas began to keep house, and for about nine years 
she did business on her own account as a republic. She en- 
joyed the privilege of getting into debt, and the gorgeousness 
of having foreign ministers dine with her. She had a numer- 
ous retinue of officials ; and she imitated other and richer repub- 
lics, even in the keeping of a navy, which has been alluded to 
in a previous chapter, . % 

The sister republic whose lot joined hers on the south was 
on bad terms with her during the greater part of this time, and 
annoyed her very much by jawing at her over the back-fence, 
and sometimes even trespassing on her property. Becoming 
tired of this, and of the expense and responsibility connected 
with her establishment, she made propositions to her neighbor 
on the north, the result of which was, that, on the 19th of Feb- 
ruary, 1846, she discharged all her servants, and went to board 
with the United States ; or, as the historian expresses it, " an- 
nexation was consummated, and the Lone Star, the emblem of 
the youngest born of republics, was merged in the constellation 
of the American Union." 

Whe-e-e ! there, now! I hope the reader knows all he 
wants to know of Texas history, for I do not care to write any 
more on that subject. Historical writing is too severe a strain 
on the imagination. 

When we left Schulenberg, we diverged from our direct 
western course for the purpose of visiting the town of Cuero, 

which lay some miles south of our line of travel. We 

were invited to spend a few days at Cuero by a genial English- 
man named Capt. Delane, who had travelled with us during 
our ride from Eagle Lake to Schulenberg, and who promised 
to show us a town where more people had died with their 
boots on than in any other town in Texas. But it was not 



A BAD SETTLEMENT, 227 

to see men die with their boots on that we went to Cuero : 
it was for a different reason. Capt. Delane, who was an ex- 
officer of her Majesty's Third Buffs, promised us some sport. 
He had just received from England two greyhounds, that he 
intended to use in coursing the mule-eared or jackass rabbit. 
He had not yet tried the dogs ; but, on his return home, he said 
he intended to invite his neighbors to participate in a day's 
coursing. The captain explained to us what a very popular 
sport coursing is in England, and how the Waterloo is in 
coursing what the Derby is in horse-racing, — the former being 
almost as great a sporting-event as the latter. He said the 
Texas jack-rabbit was about the same size as the English hare, 
and apparently ran at about the same rate of speed. He was 
enthusiastic on the subject of the exploits of certain celebrated 
greyhounds ; told us of their victories, and gave us the pedi- 
grees of Bab-at-the Bowster, Master McGrath, Don't-be-Head- 
strong, and many other noted dogs, and promised us unlimited 
sport, and much insight into the laws and rules governing 
coursing. 

On our way to Cuero we passed through a settlement the 
name of which I have forgotten. I may call it Smithville. 
The soil was poor and sandy ; the crops were of a weak and 
puny character ; the farms were miserably cultivated ; the 
inhabitants appeared, as far as their cultivation was concerned, 
to be in harmony with the farms, — most of them were but 
poorly educated, and many could not even read — their neigh- 
bors' brands on their neighbors' cattle. This often caused 
them to make mistakes when they went out to kill a steer for 
beef. They were, however, invariably willing to make amends 
for such errors by killing the neighbor when he came over to 
chide them for their ignorance. These peculiarities, and some 
cases of mistaken identity in the matter of horses traced to 
them, caused the people of this settlement to be looked upon 
as unfitted for high places in the church. In fact, it was a bad 
settlement, — the worst I ever heard of except the one made 
by Fritz von Schwindelmeyer down at Houston. Fritz com- 
promised at twenty cents on the dollar, and settled that by 
burning his store, and turning over to his creditors half a 



228 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



gross oi pretzels and a grindstone, that were rescued from the 
flames. 

But to return to the Smithvillians. They were without a 
church, but they were not without religous aspirations. The 
neighboring settlement of Jonesboro had lately enjoyed a 
clerical scandal and a funeral, — the funeral 'of poor Sam Jones, 
gentle Samuel, who never injured any one, and who died from 

the effects of casting reflections on the an- 
cestry of R. J. Hunter, alias Cock-eyed Bob. 
If the Jonesboro people, who were not 
any better than they should be, could af- 
ford these evidences of modern Christianity, 
why should not the Smithvillians have "a 
preaching " } Thus they argued ; and the 
result was, that they invited the Rev. Sam- 
uel Smallwood to name a day on which he 
could conveniently come over and preach to 
them, promising, on their part, that they 

\«^«|i «pi^ would shut up the store, make the appoint- 
w w ment generally known, and give him a full 

III 'li house. They selected Dr. Saunders's gin- 

house as the place where the religious exer- 
cises were to be held. The Rev. Mr. Small- 
wood replied verbally through Major Sher- 
wood, promising to preach, and appropri- 
ating the following Wednesday, at one p.m. 
At the appointed time the parson appeared at the gin-house, 
and waited there for about an hour ; but nobody came. He 
walked up to the store, and inquired why the people had not 
turned out, as promised. 

" Why, parson," said the storekeeper, ** we didn't know you 
was a-coming : you never sent us word." 

"Yes, I did ! I sent the appointment by Major Sherwood, 
and it was for to-day at one o'clock." 

"Ah ! that accounts for it," said the storekeeper. " You see, 
parson, the major was put out a good deal the evening of the 
day he saw you; and — but here he comes, and he will explain 
himself." 



^" 



i- 




THE PARSON. 



THE WRONG BOTTLE. 229 

" Good-morning, major ! " 

"■ Morning, morning, parson ! Glad to see you, sir ! " 

"Major, why did you not give out the appointment I sent by 
you last week ? " 

"Well, I declare, parson, I'm dog — I mean I'm everlastingly 
sorry; but I couldn't help it, sir — couldn't help it. It was a 
da — a shame, sir; but I met with an accident the evening I 
saw you, and the appointment went to the de — went out of 
my head, I should say — you must excuse me, parson, if I 
seem sort o' cramped in my language. You know, sir, I never 
touch whiskey, not even a drop ; leastwise, very seldom." 

Noticing the preacher's gaze fastened on his rubicund 
countenance, he continued, — 

" Neuralgia, sir, neuralgia. It sometimes gives me the d — 
great pain, indeed. Did you ever have the neuralgia, sir } " 

The Rev. Samuel Smallwood intimated that he never had 
suffered from that particular kind. 

" Some people say that I drink : it is false, sir. I never use 
whiakey except when I am unwell, and I suffer from this cussed 
neuralgia all the time. After I got home on the evening I saw 
you in town, Dr. Saunders and Bud Bennett sent up for me to 
come down to the store and join them in a social glass. At 
first I didn't think I would go ; but, 
as I had a sharp touch of the neural- 
gia that evening, I concluded to go 
down and take just one snifter, to 
see if it might not help me. When 
I got down, the doctor, who always 
makes himself too da — too familiar 
in this store, accordino: to my notion, 

^ •' THE WRONG BOTTLE. 

was behind the counter handing down 

a bottle of bitters. None of us had ever tasted it before. It 

was a new kind, and the doctor said he wanted to try if it 

wasn't good for the chest. He filled out three glasses ; and, 

after a 'Here's to you!' we all three emptied them at the same 

time. 

" 'Devilish queer-tasting bitters ! ' said Dr. Saunders, screwing 
up his mouth as if he had stuck his teeth in a green persim- 




230 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



mon. 'That's the damnedest bitters I ever tasted,' said Bud — 
excuse me, sir, but Bennett always does swear : I have spoken 
to him about it — and Bud, he smelled of his glass, and shook 
his head. I felt a sort of drug-store taste in my mouth as the 
stuff went down, and my throat began to burn. Sez the doc- 
tor, 'Take a hair of the dog,' sez he. 'Maybe it won't taste 
so bad when we get used to it.' Before I had fairly got the 
second drink down, I knew I was poisoned : my tongue had 
swelled so I could hardly speak, and sparks were flying before 

my eyes. I knew my only 
hope was my wife's rattle- 
snake remedy ; and I broke 
for the door, and lit out for 
home as fast as I could run. 
By the time I got home my 
whole inside was on fire, my 
eyes were popping out of 
my head, there was frqth 
at my lips, and my tongue 
filled my mouth so I couldn't 
speak. I just threw myself 
on the bed, and pointed to 
the shelf where, the rattle- 
snake remedy was kept. 
Betty — that's my wife — 
saw at a glance what was 
the matter, or thought she 
did, and ran for the antidote. 
•It is made of castor-oil, whiskey, and spirits of turpentine; and 
she dosed me with it, holding the bottle upside down in my 
mouth with one hand, while with the other she pulled my 
clothes off, looking for the place where the snake bit me. Oh, 
you needn't laugh ! you wouldn't have laughed much if you 
had been in my place. I couldn't explain to Betty, on account 
of the size of my tongue, and the way I was choked with the 
infer — the nasty remedy. By the time she had got me stark 
naked, and was standing over me with a red-hot smoothing- 
iron, intending to laundry the place where the snake had bit 




I JUST THREW MYSELF ON THE BED. 



CROSSING THE NAVIDAD. 



231 



me as soon as she found it, the wife of Bud Bennett came run- 
ning in, calUng for help. She gasped out that Bud had come 
home clean crazy, and gnashing his teeth, and that she had 
come over here for protection, leaving Bud drinking buttermilk 
by the gallon, and frothing at the mouth. While she was talk- 
ing, and I was trying to .get the quilts over my bare legs, the 
nigger that Mrs. Bennett had sent to tell Dr. Saunders to come 
over quickly, as her husband was poisoned, came tearing in, 
and said that Dr. Saunders had ' done gone crazy,' and had sent 
his compliments, and to say to go to the devil ; that he was 
*done poisoned, and had got a fit himself.' Now, parson, that 
bloody fool — excuse me again, sir — had gone and handed 
down a bottle of Mustang Liniment, instead of a bottle of 
bitters ; and, considering the circumstances related, can you 
blame me for failing once in my religious duty by forgetting 
to give out your appointment } " 

We crossed the Navidad on a small ferry-boat, — one of the 
primitive kind, swinging by two pulleys to a rope, the ends of 
which were made fast to a stump on each side of the stream. 
The current was swift, and our progress necessarily slow. We 










-^■l:'*-:-^^>SlSi' 




"ALWAYS READY TO 'BLIGE A GEM MAN. 



volunteered to help the ferryman ; and each of us took hold of 
the rOpe at the prow, and walked towards the stern, thus pro- 
pelling the boat towards the other side of the river. 

An old negro stood in the sand on the farther bank of the 
river. When we were in the middle, the doctor hailed him : — 



232 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" Uncle ! can't you give us a hand, and help us across ? " 

"Yes, boss! to be sure. I's always ready to 'blige a gem- 
man." And the old fellow stuck his heels in the sand, and lay 
back on the rope, pulling with all his strength, as if he wanted 
to pull the stump up by the roots. He pulled until we ran the 
boat ashore, and thanked him for the assistance he had given 
us. The poor old man really thought he had done much toward 
getting us across. It was the most absurd and ludicrous sight 
I ever saw, — the old darkey, with his earnest pull-all-together 
attitude, his perspiring face, obliging disposition, and the self- 
satisfied look of his countenance as he made steady and perse- 
vering efforts to draw the stump and the bank of the river to 
his feet. 

The county of Lavaca has an area of nine hundred and fifty 
square miles. There is about one-half of the land timbered ; 
the rest, open prairie. The bottom-lands are of black alluvial 
soil, deep, and very productive. The population is increasing 
rapidly, and the country is being improved by a thrifty class of 
immigrants, — most of them Germans and Bohemians. At the 
close of the war there were two thousand negroes in the county : 
now there is not much more than one-fourth of that number. 

We noticed an extraordinary variety in the style of fences, — 
brush, wire, rail, board, and rock, in every imaginable combina- 
tion. A large proportion of the pastures in Texas are fenced 
with wire. The prejudice against the wire-fence is gradually 
dying out, and its utility and durability are fast becoming ap- 
parent. In the prairie country west of the Colorado there is 
little timber, few saw-mills, and lumber for fencing or building 
purposes is very expensive, owing to the long distance it has 
to be hauled. A mile of fence costs from two hundred to four 
hundred dollars, according to the quality and amount of material 
used, and the location of the place fenced. It costs less per acre 
to fence a large pasture or farm than a small one. This sug- 
gests a very peculiar mathematical problem : — 

If to fence i acre costs ^40, 16 acres will cost $160, or \ as much per 
acre as it costs to fence i acre ; 64 acres will cost ^^320, or \ as much 
per acre as it costs to fence i acre ; 256 acres will cost ^640, or -^^ as 
much per acre as it costs to fence i acre ; and so on. 



FENCING AN ACRE WITH A TOOTHPICK. 233 

When you come to a forty-thousand-acre pasture, it only costs 
ten cents per acre to fence it. I have seen a fence around a 
forty-thousand-acre pasture ; and the owner, Mr. Dewese of San 
Antonio, told me that the fence cost him just ten cents per 
acre, and that three feet of lumber fenced an acre. This suo-- 
gests another calculation : — 

It takes about 2,000 feet of lumber to fence i acre, when 5 6-inch 
planks are used; 8,000 feet for 16 acres, or 500 feet per acre; 16,000 
feet for 64 acres, or 250 feet per acre; 32,000 feet for 256 acres, or 
125 feet per acre. 

Now, what I want somebody to figure out is, how much land 
a man would require to enclose, so that his fence would not cost 
any thing per acre. If the thing keeps on as I have shown 
above, it is bound to come to that in the end, if the land only 
holds out ; and I believe it can be figured out so that a tooth- 
pick will fence an acre, and enough lumber be left over to build 
a church. 




^^P^j.hr.: --y^-^^^-^ 



234 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 




WERE seven of us in the party that 
started at daybreak for the prairie. 
The two greyhounds were carried in 
a buggy. 

" What is that for ? " said the doctor, 
pointing to some peculiar leather 
straps the captain carried. 

" That's a slip. You know, we want 
the dogs to start together. We put 
them in the slip. When a hare starts, 
a pull on this little cord throws the 
collars open, and both the dogs get off at the same moment. If 
we did not use a slip, the dogs would not start together : one 
might see the hare before the other. Its use is also important 
in restraining the dogs until the hare gets a start." 
"What do you give the hare a start for .'' " 
*' Because the dogs run faster than the hare, you know ; and 
it would be no fun to kill it at once. What I am afraid of is, 
that the jack-rabbit may not be so fast as the English hare ; but 
I shall hold back the dogs, and give the rabbit a good start." 

A man who looked like a Texas veteran smiled a gentle 
smile, that awoke the echoes in the next county, and then he 
said, — 

" B-b-b-bless your innocent heart ! do-do-do-don't be afraid of 
that; for a ja-ja-ja-jack-rabbit can just ke-ke-ke-keep ahead of 
any thing that runs. A full-grown jack can beat a half-rate 
me-me-message on an air-line." 

The jack-rabbit does not burrow in th'e ground : he is found 
concealed in a tuft of long grass, or lying on the bare prairie, 







COURSING JACK-RABBITS. 



COURSING JACK-RABBITS. 



235 



with his ears folded back, and looking like a brown stone or a 
buffalo chip. When disturbed, he unlimbers his long legs, un- 
furls his ears, and goes off with a bound. After running for 
about a hundred yards, he usually sits down, throws his ears 
back, listens for a moment, and then goes off again. 

When we came to an open place where the ground was level, 
the captain went on foot, holding the dogs in the slips. Sud- 
denly a jack-rabbit started within a few feet of where he was 
walking. The greyhounds saw the rabbit the moment he 
started, and made strenuous efforts to get loose. The captain 
slipped them, and both started together. The rabbit was 
about fifty yards ahead at 
the start. In sixty seconds 
he had gained on the dogs, 
and was a hundred yards 
ahead. In two minutes he 
was out of sight, and the 
dogs were coming back with 
their tails between their legs. 

Of the many fast things 
I had seen, from an ice-boat 
to a note maturing in the 
bank, none of them ever ap- 
proached the speed of the 
jack-rabbit. I had often seen 
these rabbits running, but I 

had never witnessed one with his speed accelerated by the 
presence of a greyhound in his wake. It is wonderful to see 
a creature so short in the legs running at such an extraordi- 
nary rate of speed. 

Of six rabbits started, only one was captured, and that was 
a small one. 

Capt. Delane explained the cause of each failure, and proved 
to his own satisfaction, that, in every case, the dogs would have 
caught the rabbits had circumstances been different. One time 
it was a fence in the way ; the next, it was the sandiness of the 
soil ; and again it was the delay in slipping the dogs, thereby 
giving the rabbit too great a start. 




A JACK-RABBIT. 



236 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

As we turned to leave, the old stutterer, who looked like a 
Texas veteran, said, — 

"Well, Kernel, I th-th-th-think that p'raps a gr-gr-gr-grey- 
hound could catch a ja-ja-ja-jack-rabbit if you could only fix it, 
that, instead of gi-gi-gi-giving the rabbit the st-st-st-start of the 
dogs, you would give the do-do-do-dogs the start of the rabbit." 

We staid with Capt. Delane two days ; and although we did 
not see as many rabbits caught as we expected, yet our visit 
was a very pleasant one. 

Our conversation after supper gradually drifted into the sub- 
ject of lawlessness in Texas. 

"Yes," said the captain in a meditative tone, "things were 
rough around here once, and scenes were enacted within sight 
of where we sit that did more to give Texas a reputation for 
lawlessness than any thing else. At present DeWitt County 
is as orderly as any county in Texas, but only a few years ago 
almost the entire population was more or less involved in a 
vendetta that cost scores of men their lives. In fact, a regular 
giterilla warfare was carried on between the Taylors and the 
Suttons, in which most of the adult male population took sides. 
It reminded one of the way the rival Scotch clans used to en- 
gage in joint discussions. The son regarded it as his sacred 
duty to kill one or two of his neighbors, whose fathers had 
years before made him an orphan. From their earliest age the 
boys devoted themselves to practising with pistols, and nursing 
schemes of vengeance, in which latter occupation they were 
assisted by the relatives of the men against whom they enter- 
tained unfriendly feelings. In time some of the men, who at 
first were merely thirsting for vengeance, degenerated into or- 
dinary cut-throats and highway robbers. Dominant among the 
DeWitt-county braves was John Wesley Hardin, who is now 
in the Texas penitentiary. It is believed that he has killed 
about twenty-one men. He inspired the whole community with 
dread. Nobody pretended to interfere with him. The officers 
of the law looked the other way when he passed. Unless a 
person had visited DeWitt County during the prevalence of 
that epidemic of lawlessness, he could not form the slightest 
idea of the homage that was paid to this outlaw. Not that the 



JOHN WESLEY HARDIN. 237 

people liked him, but they were afraid to say or do any thing 
that might be construed into disapprobation of his course. I 
happened to be in the town of Cuero once during the ' reign 
of terror ; ' and, although the town was quiet, I was remarkably 
impressed with the scared looks of the respectable citizens 
when any reference was made to Hardin. 

"In October, 1874, I first visited Cuero. I found the town 
comparatively quiet. Nearly a week had passed over without 
anybody having been murdered, and it was inevitable that the 
calm could not last much longer. There were a good many 
people in town, some local election being in progress. The 
first thing that I remarked, was the large number of armed 
men who patrolled the streets. I also found that there was an 
enthusiastic unwillingness, on the part of the natives, to be 
communicative on the subject of lawlessness ; and as for * Wes* 
Hardin,' as he was familiarly and even tenderly called, few 
would acknowledge being aware of the existence of such a 
person." 

'' Were they all so much afraid of him } and had he no 
friends } " 

" Well, not many friends. He had some admirers ; but they 
did not care to say any thing, even in his favor, because Wes* 
was too careless. He would hear that a man had been talking 
about him ; and then, without inquiring what the man had said, 
he would fill him full of lead, and afterwards ask what lies the 
scoundrel had been telling about him. Then, when it was too 
late, he would find out that the deceased was really a friend of 
his, and had spoken kindly of him. Hardin would then apolo- 
gize to the widow and orphans for his thoughtlessness, and 
make a solemn vow never again to shoot a man until satisfied 
that he really needed shooting. This course, however, made 
even his warmest friends appear cold and reticent." 

'' How did you manage to find out any thing about this ban- 
dit } " inquired the doctor. 

*' I met a man in the hotel who was very intimate with Har- 
din. He said that he and Wes' had been schoolmates, and 
that he was not afraid to talk about him. He volunteered to 
take a walk with me, and show me the principal points of in- 



238 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

terest in the town. As we strolled down the street, he said, 
pointing to a small store, ' Do you see that shanty that has 
''Oysters" painted on the gable? Well, sir, that's an historic 
spot. Right in that saloon is where Wes' Hardin shot an en- 
tire stranger — a man from Missouri — twenty minutes after 
the man had stepped off the stage that brought him to town. 
Wes' is the durndest fellow you ever set eyes on. Some people 
call him a murderer, when he ain't about to explain things to 
'em. You see, the fellow came into the oyster-saloon, and 
began talking to a man who was with him about being on the 
ragged edge of civilization, and said as how he believed there 
was neither law nor justice in judge or jury ; and he said he 
wouldn't be afraid to kill a man, for he knew he could bribe the 
whole jury for two hundred dollars, bulldoze the judge for 
nothing, and fix the sheriff with a drink. Hardin, who was 
eating a dozen raw, back of the counter, asked the stranger if 
he was coming to stay in Texas. The stranger said he was. 
Then Wes' told him that he was the sort of immigrant that 
wasn't wanted in Texas. He told him that he lied when he 
said that a Texas judge or jury could be corrupted, and then 
(that temptation might be kept out of the jury-box, I suppose) 
he shot the stranger dead where he stood. Now, the idee of 
calling that a murder ! He didn't even know the stranger's 
name ; had never seen or heard of him before, and conse- 
quently couldn't have no malice. 'Tain't no murder unless 
there is malice, is it } Wes' was drunk, you see ; and, when he's 
drunk, he's the durndest fellow you ever saw for law and order, 
and backing up the judiciary. When Wes' is sober, he wouldn't 
hurt a fly ; but, just as soon as he gets whiskey, he's death on 
upholding the officers of the law, and he generally keeps at it 
till somebody gets hurt.' 

" W^hen I inquired why Hardin was not arrested, the friend 
of the outlaw was carried away by an uncontrollable fit of 
laughter at the idea of Wes' Hardin being arrested. He ex- 
plained to me, that, when Hardin got into a difficulty, no one 
ever thought of arresting him. * Getting into a difficulty ' in 
Texas means killing a man. Out in some of the western 
counties the sheriffs had to reside in the brush for weeks, to 



THE SUTTONS CORRALLED. 239 

keep from being themselves arrested. Let me tell you what I 
saw myself : — 

*' The Taylor crowd had about a dozen of the Suttons cor- 
ralled in a house. The Suttons could not get out without 
being killed, and the Taylors dare not come within range of the 
house. After a siege of thirty-six hours, the hostile parties 
made a compromise, according to the terms of which they were 
to quit shooting each other, and to turn their attention to ag- 
ricultural matters until after the cotton-picking season. This 
happened near Clinton, the county seat of DeWitt County. 
They all rode into town together. Court was in session, and 
the judge was very much surprised to see Wes' Hardin stalk 
into court with his gun on his shoulder. He showed a law- 
abiding disposition. If he had been a lawless character, he 
would have just cleaned up the docket of that court, and burnt 
the county records ; but he wasn't that kind of reformer He 
just said to the judge in his off-hand way, 'Old pard, me and 
my crowd have made up with the Suttons ; and I called to in- 
form you, that, if you find any more indictments agin us, thar 
will be a vacancy in this judicial district.' Then, turning to 
the sheriff, he said, ' Me and the Suttons wants to draw up a 
sort of a treaty like, and I want you to sign it as a witness. I 
never want to do nothin' without the sanction of the law.' 
The sheriff was a little confused ; because his breast-pocket was 
bulging out with some fifteen or twenty capiases from other 
counties, commanding him to arrest John Wesley Hardin, and 
to make due diligence in doing so. But he, and other promi- 
nent officials, wilHngly signed the document. After these for- 
malities, Wes' gave the judge permission to go on with the 
circus, as he called it ; and he and his crowd retired to a saloon 
to celebrate the armistice. Now, I saw all that myself." 

''Did your friend show you any other historic points in 
Cuero 1 " said the doctor. 

"Yes," replied the captain, "he did. We strolled out in the 
suburbs, — about a hundred yards from the business centre of 
the town, where the saloons were, — and he pointed out an old 
live-oak covered with moss. I was anxious that he should 
talk about something else besides gory murders : so I took a 



240 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

lively interest in the old oak, and suggested that probably under 
its branches the pioneer fathers of Cuero formerly celebrated 
the anniversary of their arrival. He said that on that tree 
three of the Taylor crowd were hung last month. They were 
taken out of their beds, and strung up in the night." 

"Any more sacred spots ? " asked the doctor. 

" Oh, yes ! plenty of them scattered about everywhere. He 
took me into a saloon ; and pointing to a hole as big as a saucer, 
in the wall, as the next object of interest around which clus- 
tered tender and historic memories, he explained how it was 
caused by eighteen buckshot that Bowlegged Simpson desired 
to plant in the head of Mexican Mike, and how, by a providen- 
tial interposition, Simpson's elbow was joggled as he pulled 
the trigger, and the buckshot missed Mike, and went through 
the wooden wall. Then my guide went on to give a long 
and mixed account of a battle between men with all sorts 
of barbarous nicknames, where all the participants were either 
killed, or perforated and carved beyond recognition, and where 
five or six spectators got severely winged. Finally, after in- 
specting a few more bullet-holes, and listening to some more 
history that sounded like a chapter from the life of the warrior 
saints of the Bible, we got back to the hotel, and I parted with 
my guide. 

"While I was sitting in the hotel, musing about what an 
unhealthy place Cuero was, a man came in carrying two shot- 
guns, a box of cartridges, and a rifle. He distributed the fire- 
arms around the room in convenient places. Presently another 
ammunition-wagon stepped in. He was loaded with six-shooters 
and metallic cartridges, which he deposited on a desk in the 
corner. Several other prominent citizens arrived, every one of 
them loaded to the muzzle, and ready to go off at a moment's 
notice, so to speak. Every once in a while a little fat man, 
who seemed to be chief of artillery, would pick up a shotgun, 
and, holding it in a line with my person, would lift the hammer 
of the weapon to see if the cap was all right. He did it in a 
careless way, that deprived me of any sense of enjoyment. I 
sought the landlord, and inquired the meaning of all this war- 
like preparation. He took me into a closet under the stairs, 



THE AFFLUENT EDITOR. 241 

and, after swearing me to secrecy, informed me, with the 
aid of pantomime and whispers, that a crowd of the Taylors 
were in town ; that the Suttons had threatened to come in, and 
clean the Taylors out ; and that the men now in the hotel were 
friends of the Taylors, preparing to hold the fort, should any 
attack be made that nig-ht " 

" You didn't make Cuero your permanent residence ? " queried 
the doctor. 

*' I reckon I would have, if I had staid there that night ; but 
I started on the stage for San Antonio late in the evening. I 
had business there anyhow. I heard afterwards that there^was 
a big fight in Cuero the night I left, and that the landlord of 
the hotel got killed by accident, besides having the whole o-able 
end of his house shot full of holes. I did not come back to 
Cuero for two years afterwards. During these two years most 
of the murderers and robbers got killed off, and Hardin went 
to Florida, where he was caught about a year ago, brought back 
to Texas, tried, and sentenced to the penitentiary for twenty- 
one years." 

" Captain, were you in Cuero when old Feehan was running 
the 'Weekly Clarion ' .?" said the red-haired man at the end oi 
the table. 

"I met him once," said the captain, ^'during my brief sojourn 
at Cuero. On the occasion I have just referred to, I found 
time to call on the editor of the ' Clarion.' I was once a 
newspaper man myself ; and I always make it convenient, when 
I pass through such a town as Cuero, to call and pay my re- 
spects to the great man who wields the Archimedean lever 
that moves the world. During my visit to the 'Clarion' 
editor, I saw and heard what surprised me more than any thing 
I have ever seen or heard in the whole course of my life. You 
know how it is in the office of a little country paper. It con- 
sists of a suite of one room, which is composing-room, press- 
room, editorial sanctum, dining-room, and sleeping-apartment. 
The editorial tripod consists usually of an old candle-box or an 
empty nail-keg, in front of which is a decrepit old table upon 
which the thunderbolts are forged. The editor is a lank, hol- 
low-eyed man, who looks as if he had been blighted by an 



242 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



unseasonable frost early in life. His clothes have the same 
blighted look, and his editorials show traces of dyspepsia and 
disappointment. Irregularity in taking his meals, and the 
mental wear, and tear incident to his getting out a weekly 
paper, give him a pinched and careworn look. If he is par- 
ticularly energetic, he can usually manage to raise enough 
money semi-occasionally to calm down the boy who sets up the 

paper and engineers the old 
Franklin press, and prevent 
him from going on a general 
strike." 

''But the editor of the 
* Clarion ' was no such a 
slouch as that," said the 
red-haired man. 

" No, he was not ; and 
that is what surprised me. 
He must have weighed two 
hundred pounds, and he did 
not look as if he had missed 
a meal since he was born. 
Instead of wearing old 
clothes, he was dressed in 
a suit that a nabob or a drummer might have worn. Instead 
of an old cot to sleep on, he had a room all to himself, fixed up 
with an elegant set of furniture, 'Chimney-Corner' chromos 
on the wall, and other indications of extreme wealth on every 
side. I could hardly believe my senses, and even now the 
whole affair seems to be a kind of a vision. He asked me to 
step up to the sideboard, and, setting out a whole box of 
cigars, desired information as to my preference in the way 
of tonics. He had bourbon and rye, dry sherry, burgundy, 
and port. He apologized for the absence of champagne, stat- 
ing that his last shipment from his San Antonio wine-merchant 
had been unaccountably delayed on the way. I was acquainted 
with the circumstances of the Texas editors in the large towns, 
but never had I witnessed such gorgeousness ; and I wondered 
how that little country paper could support such a John Jacob 




THE AFFLUENT EDITOR. 



BLUFFING AN EDITOR. 243 

Astor of an editor. Taking all the material that went to make 
up the ' Clarion,' — the type, presses, paper, and total outfit, 
including an average set of editorial brains, — the whole thing 
would have been extravagantly dear at two hundred dollars, on 
six months' time. Here was a mystery I determined to un- 
ravel if it took a week to do so. 

''After we had discussed several kinds of beverages, and were 
in a somewhat advanced condition of mellowness, I brousfht 
the conversation around to the influences of the press, and 
expressed some surprise at the wonderful prosperity of the 
'Clarion.' The editor and proprietor of the 'Clarion' opened 
a fresh bottle, and smiled a most significant smile. Said he, ' I 
owe all this fatness to Wes' Hardin.' 

" ' Do you mean to say that you give the moral support of 
your paper to lawlessness .'* ' 

"'Not a bit of it,' he responded. 'You know, Wes' and the 
boys are in the habit of coming to town and scaring the mer- 
chants out of their senses. There is no telling what Hardin 
and his crowd might do ; and, when they hear of a man slander- 
ing them by intimating that they are not law-abiding citizens, 
just as likely as not they appoint a committee to forward the 
man to that bourn from which, etc. Now, while the "Clarion" 
is not a lawless organ, I did not purpose, for the sake of the 
miserable patronage it received from merchants, to pitch into 
the boys. Half of the merchants didn't advertise, and some did 
not even take the weekly at two dollars a year. They grumbled 
because I did not give them enough reading-matter, and be- 
cause the editorials were not scholarly enough to suit them. 
If it had not been for Bill Jenkins, who keeps the Gently- 
Dreaming Saloon, I would have starved to death. My clothes 
needed repairs before they could have been fit to put on a 
scarecrow. The merchants treated me with contempt ; and 
when I wanted to get a pair of trousers, or a few pounds of 
crackers, I had to come out and puff them, and call them mer- 
chant-princes. And now — well,' continued the editor of the 
' Clarion,' as he passed the cigars, and threw himself back in 
his armchair with the air of a man owning a silver-mine and 
a trotting-horse, 'you see yourself how I'm fixed.' 



244 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"■ ' How in the name of all that is magnetic did you manage 
it ? ' said I. 

"'Well, I'll tell you. These merchants here got into the 
habit of bullyragging me for not denouncing Wes' Hardin. 
They alleged, very truthfully too, that the town had a bad 
name ; country customers were afraid to come here to trade : 
and they said that the " Clarion " ought to take a bold stand. 
I knew what the result would be if the ''Clarion" were to hint 
that Col. J. Wesley Hardin was not one of the most respected 
citizens in DeWitt County. I would be — in short, shot; and I 
did not think the patronage the "Clarion" was getting, justified 
any such sacrifice on my part. Now, sir, will you believe it } 
One morning about all the merchants in the town, including 
those who didn't subscribe, waited on me in a body. Said one, 
who was owing a year's subscription, " Vy ton't you shust dake 
a pold shtand, and give dem routies fits .-* So helb me grashers ! 
I shtobs mine babers." He was one who used to take a bold 
stand by crawling under the store when Wes' Hardin came to 
town. 

" * The drift of the matter was, that they had no use for a 
paper that did not sustain the good citizens by denouncing 
rowdyism ; and they threatened to withdraw their support if I 
did not come out in the next issue, and denounce Hardin and 
his crowd. In their excitement, they called Col. Hardin every 
bad name they could think of. I offered them the use of the 
columns of my paper. I agreed, that, if they would all sign a 
card denouncing the banditti, I would publish it free of charge. 
This threw a coldness over the delegation : the very idea scared 
them ; for they knew, if they did such a thing, they would 
be called to an unpleasant accountability as soon as Wes' 
would read the paper. A happy thought occurred to me. I 
would turn the tables on my unappreciative patrons. I asked 
them to wait, and I would write an editorial on the matter 
under discussion, and submit it to them. They smiled signifi- 
cantly at each other, as much as to say, " We knew we would 
brijig him to terms." When I had finished writing my article, 
I read it to them. It was a simple statement of facts : it gave 
the name of each member of the delegation, the object of the 



THE ARCHIMEDEAN LEVER. 245 

visit, and the opprobrious terms each had used in speaking of 
Col, Hardin and his friends. It told how they sought to in- 
timidate and coerce the '* Clarion " into denouncing a man who 
had never yet been convicted of any crime. When I finished 
reading, that delegation was the sickest-looking set of mortals 
I ever set eyes on. At first they said they would withdraw 
their patronage if I published it. I told them I could better 
afford to lose such patronage as theirs than to suppress an 
article like this, that was bound to make a sensation, and run 
the " Clarion's " circulation up into the thousands. I asked 
their advice as to issuing it in the shape of an extra, and send- 
ing a marked copy to Wes' Hardin. I assured them that I would 
do justice to their memories when they were gone. I would 
be in attendance at their funerals, and publish a description of 
the obsequies in the columns of the *' Clarion." But, to shorten 
my story, I collected two hundred and fifty dollars in cash on 
the spot for subscriptions and advertisements, having promised, 
at the earnest solicitation of the delegates, to say nothing of 
their visit. Since then I have had no trouble to get along. I 
am the only really prosperous editor in Texas. My credit is 
unlimited, and the "Clarion " is read with absorbing interest by 
our business men. They are all ready to indorse any thing I 
say. Here's to Col. Wes' Hardin, the friend of the press ! God 
bless him ! ' 

''Just as the editor was draining his goblet, we were inter- 
rupted by a prominent merchant sticking his head in at *the 
door, and saying, ' Eggscuse me, mein frient, I chust stepped 
over to let you know dot my fall gootsh ash arrived. I hopes 
you comes over and picks yourself oud a new goat and bants 
for my birthday breshend.' 

" I parted with the affluent editor, as he went off with the 
merchant to get the 'new goat and bants,' and for the first 
time I realized how completely we are all in the hands of the 
Archimedean lever." 

While in DeWitt County, we saw a company of Texas ran- 
gers. The rangers have done more to suppress lawlessness, to 
capture criminals, and to prevent Mexican and Indian raids on 
the frontier, than any other agency employed by either State or 



246 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

national government. They are employed and paid by the 
State. 

The rangers are almost all young men. They are enlisted 
for a year, and are each required to furnish a horse, saddle, and 
bridle, a repeating Winchester rifle, and a navy revolver. The 
State furnishes rations, and pays thirty dollars a month to each 
private. They wear no uniform : each man dresses as his taste, 
or the condition of his finances, may dictate. They are uni- 
formed, however, in some things : they all wear broad-brimmed 
sombreros, and swear. There are about a hundred and eighty 
rangers in the service of the State. 

On our way from Cuero to Gonzales, we found some rangers 
camped in the woods, on the bank of a small creek. There 
were ten men in the squad. They had been camped there for 
several days, waiting for the opening of court, at which they 
had been ordered to attend to protect a murderer, whose life 
was threatened by the friends of the man he had killed. It was 
expected, that, should the jury acquit him, he would be shot be- 
fore he left the court-house by the murdered man's relatives. 
The ranger captain invited us to dismount, and share the mid- 
day meal with them. We accepted the invitation, and enjoyed 
an excellent dinner. Some of the men had caught fish in the 
creek : others had shot some birds and a squirrel. The prod- 
ucts of the rod and the gun, with the indispensable corn-bread 
and coffee, made an unexpected feast that we were thankful for, 
and to which we did ample justice. We staid several hours, 
while the boys entertained us with stories of horse-thief hunt- 
ing, Indian trailing, and scouting generally. The ranger cap- 
tain is responsible for the following : a man called on him one 
day in camp. The man looked like a cowboy : he wore a dyed 
mustache, and he wanted to be a ranger. 
"Captain, I want to join your company." 
" Haven't got a place for you, unless you're a cook." 
"Cook! Sweet spirit, hear my prayer! No, sir: I'm a 
scout from the Far West, whar the turkey-buzzard roosts on the 
fleshless ribs of the dead buffalo, and whar the coyote sleeps in 
the deserted wigwams of the skulpt Indian. Geehossifat ! I'm 
the Long-range Roarer of the Sierra Mojada Mountains. I 



THE CAVORTIN' CATACLYSM. 



247 



want to enlist in your company, and show you how to clean out 
the gory red-skins." 

" But we are full ; don't need another man." 

** Major, you don't mean it ! You don't know who I am. I'm 
071 it, I want you to know. I'm no feather-bed soldier. I'm old 
pie, I am ; and, when it comes to fightin' Indians, I'm just the 
sort of a liver-pad you want." 

" But I tell you, there is no use " — 

" O Lordy, colonel ! jest give me a show. You can't know 
who you are talking to. I'm the Cavortin' Cataclysm of the 
Calaveras Canyon, — the terror of " — 

''Well, all right! Dry up, now, and 
I'll take you ; for I believe, since I've 
come to think of it, that we do need a 
long-range roarer, and, taking you at 
your word, I think you will fill the 
bill." 

So Bill was enlisted in the rangers, 
and went out with them on the next 
trail. His tale of the many Indians he 
had chawed up soon gave him a promi- 
nent position among the boys, many of 
whom had never seen an Indian sign. 
His opinion and advice were sought by 
the officers whenever any matter of 
difficulty presented itself. His advice 
was always given in general terms, and 

to the effect, that, when the moment for action would arrive, 
they should be calm and collected, keep cool, and, above all, use 
strategy. On the last point he dwelt in terms of almost lyric 
fervor : " In war, gentlemen, strategy is more'n guns, it's more'n 
whiskey, it's more'n any thing ; and it's hellamile when you 
come to tradin' lead with the Indians." 

Somehow or other Bill, who from his knowledge of signs, 
was given temporary command of the scouting-party, always 
arrived too late, "Indians been here last night, sure's you're 
a foot high," he would say. He promised from day to day to 
bring the command up with the fugitives "to-morrow, 'bout two 




THE CAVORTIN' CATACLYSM. 



248 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



hours by sun ; and when they tackle me, boys, they'll find they 
have barked up the wrong tree, you can just bet your boots." 

One morning, on turning around a neck of woods, they came 
suddenly within sight of about fifty Indians, who were in the 
act of breaking camp. Every one looked to the experienced 
Indian-chawer for their cue. He was equal to the occasion. 
** Hush ! " said Bill : "lie low, be cool, and wait for orders : I'll 
show you what strategy can do." And cautioning them to keep 
concealed behind trees, and not to move until he returned, the 
Cavorting Cataclysm put spurs to his horse, and, striking a trail 
at right angles to their former course, he disappeared over a 
slight rise in the ground. The rangers waited for him until 
near sundown, expecting every moment to see some grand 
strategic movement inaugurated by the scout from the Far West. 
When next seen by the boys, the geographical position of the 
Long-range Roarer from the Sierra Mojada was two hundred 
miles east, and he was engaged in the prosaic occupation of 
mixing drinks in a Waco saloon for the paltry sum of forty dol- 
lars a month. 




\ 



N 



\ 



N 



\ 



A SURPRISE. 



249 



CHAPTER XIX. 




v^ 



-^^•'%<,>,.«.WAc\x^n- 



WERE two days riding from 
Cuero to Luling. On the sec- 
ond night we camped in the 
woods a few miles from the lat- 
ter place. Being tired, we slept 
soundly on the hard ground. In 
the morning when we awoke, 
about daybreak, we noticed six 
Winchester rifles and carbines, 
three shotguns, and four six- 
shooters, that we had not ob- 
served the night before. I had 



time and 



agam 



grazed on an 



array of levelled muskets — in a gunshop ; but that never 
affected me as did these newly discovered arms. We were 
surprised to see such an armory in that out-of-the-way place ; 
but our astonishment was of short duration, for it had to give 
place to other and more powerful emotions. An unpleasant 
feeling of uncertainty, not unmixed with a positive foreboding 
of some dire misfortune, took possession of us, caused by the 
discovery of an ill-favored varlet embracing the wooden end of 
each weapon. 

I had on one occasion sought the bubble Reputation at the 
cannon's mouth — that was when I ran for first corjDoral in the 
Washington Guards ; but no incident of my experience with 
fire-arms exceeded this in thrilling interest. The thrill that 
wandered around inside me, when I gazed into the muzzle of 



250 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



the rustiest shotgun, was of the largest caliber, — some twelve 
to the pound. In 1863 I looked into the mouth of Roaring 
Meg, the big cannon on the walls of Londonderry; in 1875 I 
stood at the base of Mount Cenis, and peered into the dark 
opening of the great tunnel ; last year I was introduced to the 
biggest bore in our own country, — a man who owned a patent 
motor ; and a short time ago I had my attention called to an 
opening in the grocery business : but the largest orifice I ever 




^-^--.v'*'^ x.^ 



"HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 



examined in my life, as it seemed to me, was the One I saw as 
I looked inside the barrel of the old muzzle-loader pointed at 
my head on this occasion. 

"Hold up your hands!" said the leader of the party, — a 
small man with a long duck-gun at his shoulder, — **and be 
pretty quick about it." 

So anxious were we to avoid giving him any opportunity to 
exasperate us, that if he had suggested — in a gentlemanly way, 
of course — that we should stand on our heads, and hold up our 



ABOUT TO BE HUNG. 251 

legs, the suggestion would have been acted on at once. The 
doctor got his hands up with an alacrity that I had never seen 
equalled. I held my hands up too, as the matter did not admit 
of any delay. 

''We had a devil of a time catching up with you," said the 
spokesman. '* I suppose you know what you are to expect. We 
are going to commission you for a longer journey than the one 
you started on, durn you !" 

We expressed our surprise at their action, and requested that 
they might explain what they meant. 

** Yes, that's the way with all of you : you don't never know 
nothing. You're too good to live in a hard community like 
this ; and that's the reason that your sort is always in such a 
hurry to get away that you are compelled to borrow a horse, and 
scoot without saying *by your leave.' " 

We understood our situation now. We were supposed to be 
horse-thieves. It was a very unenviable position, — our earthly 
hopes in the past, thirteen armed men in the present, and a 
rope in the immediate future. We offered to prove our inno- 
cence by our papers. 

'* Papers be blowed ! Of course you have papers. They all 
have 'em, — bushels of 'em. 

" Put a beggar on horseback," continued the leader, address- 
ing us, "and you know where he goes. Well, that's where 
you are going ; and we propose to furnish the means to start 
you. Bring on the ropes, Alex. !" 

Alex, produced about thirty feet of rope. The presence of 
the men in our camp, and the subsequent proceedings, were so 
sudden, I could not realize that in a few minutes I was ofoins: 
to be ''launched into eternity," as the newspaper reporters say 
when describing the hanging of a criminal. I caught myself 
wondering if the rope would hurt much more because it was 
new than an old one would, and hazarding guesses as to whether 
they would haul us up from the ground in the old way, or put 
us on horses, and then lead the horses from under us, — the 
more modern way of "snapping the vital thread." 

A discussion now took place between some of our captors, 
as to whether we should be allowed ten minutes for prayer or 



252 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

not ; and one man proposed that we should be taken back some 
distance, until another party that was in pursuit on another 
road would have a chance to '' see the show," as he put it, and 
"have a share in the good work." 

The anti-prayer was in the majority. They argued that horse- 
thieves' prayers wouldn't be '' no account, nohow," and there- 
fore it would be useless to lose further time. After some 
discussion, however, they agreed that it would be pure selfish- 
ness to enjoy the festivities all by themselves ; that it would be 
a burning shame to cheat their absent co-laborers out of partici- 
pation in the entertainment by being too precipitate ; and they 
were self-denying enough to delay the proceeding until they 
could conduct us back to a point where they expected to meet 
the other scouting-party. Just as they were about to start with 
us, yells from human throats, tramp of horses' feet, and crack- 
ing of branches, advised us that another party of horsemen was 
approaching. I thought of all the stories of frontier life I had 
ever read : and I remembered, and was consoled by, the fact, that 
the prisoner bound for execution was always saved by the op- 
portune arrival of friends at the critical moment ; that, where 
the honest white man was helpless under the uplifted toma- 
hawk of the savage, a ''well-directed shot" from the gun of a 
hidden friend invariably saved him. This never failed. It was 
always so in the books I had read. The innocent man never 
suffered. The Nemesis of the wicked was always on hand at 
the right moment, in the shape either of a trapper, who was 
unconventional beyond what was human, or of a good Indian, 
who spoke in short paragraphs, and could be in six places at 
once. I was comforted, and looked for relief at the hands of 
the approaching horsemen ; although I had some doubts, for I 
had heard that all the good Indians were dead. My hopes were 
of short duration ; for one of our captors said, " That's them 
now ! I hear Bill Gatlin's tongue a-waggin' : I'm glad he's 
along ; he's accustomed to the business, and can do the job to 
a dot." 

Four horsemen galloped into the open space. '' Jist in time 
to help put 'em through, Bill. We have got 'em. There they 
are. Slick-lookin' fellows, ain't they } and I reckon them's your 



/ 



THE BUG FROM UNDER THE WRONG CHIP. 253 

horses staked out there ; " and he pointed to our ponies crop- 
ping the grass at some distance off. 

'* Them my horses ! you fool ! You have took the 

bug from under the wrong chip this time. Why, the horses 
that were stolen from me were two hands higher than them 
plugs, and these men here are all right. They stopped at 
uncle Pete's night 'fore last. And I have done catched my 
horses, and swung up one of the thieves, an hour ago. I trailed 
him into the bottom, and we never took him off the horse : 
we led the mustang from under him, and left him hanging 
there." 

" Well, gosh darn it ! " said our captor : " if that. ain't a blamed 
shame, after all our trouble ! Let's take a drink, and get out 
of here." He handed around a beer-bottle full of whiskey, 
remarking, '* Better luck next time. This is the most uncer- 
tain country I ever saw. There is no pleasure in living in it, 
anyhow. Whenever a fellow thinks he is going to have a good 
time, he is sure to slip up on it. Why didn't we do as I wanted 
to, — hang 'em first, and discuss the evidence afterward .? Can't 
make a mistake that way, because you can be sure they needed 
hanging for something, anyhow. I say, durn such a country ! " 

After advising us not to be "too confounded smart next 
time," or we might fall in with a crowd not disposed to be so 
lenient, the man with the duck-gun mounted his horse, and was 
about to ride off. It was over in a moment. Before he got 
the reins gathered up, Bill Gatlin had drawn and fired his re- 
volver, and the owner of the duck-gun had gone to render an 
account of his villanies, — gone, as he had wanted us to go, 
without a moment wherein to breathe a prayer. 

" What does all this mean } " cried several, as they gathered 
around Bill and his smoking revolver. 

'' Mean t I'll tell you what it means : it means that this 
fellow is a brother of the thief we've hung. They have been 
working in partnership, and have thirty head of horses corralled 
down in the bottom, ready to drive off to Kansas. They 
worked it fine, but they didn't get up early enough in the 
morning for this crowd." 

" By thunder ! he was the fellow that first put us on the 



254 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

trail of these galloots. Easy to see now why he wanted them 
hung so suddint." 

I reahzed that the stories in the books were right, after all ; 
and I reproached myself for having doubted them. 

We were very thankful for getting off so easy ; for, as has 
been before intimated, murder and midnight robbery are con- 
sidered mere misdemeanors when compared with horse-stealing. 

Not long since, in an interior town of Texas, a young man 
with blond hair, a freckled nose, and other marks of personal 
attractiveness, applied to the deputy-sheriff for a pass to see 
his father, who, he had reason to suppose, w^as an inmate of the 
county jail. 

"What's your name V asked the officer, turning to his regis- 
ter. 

" I'm Jim McSnifter, from the Arroyo Colorado." 

'' What peculiar kind of playfulness has your feyther been 
amusin' himself with, — murder in the first degree.^" 

" Wusser than that," was the McSnifterian response. 

All levity vanished from the face of the officer, who was 
really a kind-hearted man ; and there was human sympathy, and 
perhaps a tear in his eye, as he turned over the page, and said 
in a low voice, — 

'' Worse than murder ! My God ! he must have stolen a 
pony ! " 

" It was some misunderstanding about a mewel," observed 
McSnifter, jun., punishing his cowhide boots with his whip. 

''There are none of the McSnifters in jail. Maybe I've got 
a capias for you. Don't go just yet." And the officer looked 
in vain through his files to accommodate the young man, who 
began to explain, — 

" I bleeve in the last indictment the old man's name was 
spelt Bob White. You see, that's the old man's new jail-name. 
The title of the suit is 'The State agin White.' " 

" Why didn't you say so at once } You mean that is his title 
at court. Why, certainly ! just you come along, and I'll present 
you. He is in the ground cell. Come along ! I want to see if 
the old rooster hasn't been trying to saw his hobbles off." 

About noon we arrived at Luling, which, a short time ago, 



LULING. 255 

was the terminus of the San Antonio Railroad, and it remained 
so for almost a year. It was a type of the town created by the 
railroads in their progress through Texas. Its history would 
read like a chapter from the biography of the man with the 
wonderful lamp, — its site, one day the feeding-ground of the 
jackass-rabbit and the home of the coyote ; a month hence, a 
wooden town of a thousand inhabitants. Where tJien the rat- 
tlesnake aired his poisonous fangs, now the denizen of the 
music-hall exhibits her equally dangerous blandishments. Then 
the wild beasts of the field, as their instincts and necessities 
taught them, made war on each other with the weapons nature 
furnished : now human beasts (gamblers and roughs), prompted 
by the devil and bad whiskey, destroy each other with the 
deadly derringer and the murderous bowie-knife. 

In one short month the howling wilderness is transformed, 
by the nervous energy and resistless enterprise of the railroad 
pioneer, into a town of a hundred houses, where beer is sold, 
billiards are played, the gentle tiger is bucked, and the strange 
woman holds her court ; where the scattered fragments of the 
Third Commandment darken the air, and the sound of the pistol- 
shot is monotonously frequent, — a pandemonium of vice, folly, 
and sin, where the struggle for gold, and the viler passions of 
men, blot out the better part of man's nature, — a place where 
a drink of whiskey costs twenty-five cents, a poor cup of straight 
coffee the same amount, and a badly cooked dinner, served on 
a rough pine table without a cloth, costs a dollar, — a spot 
where all manner of trades and professions are represented, 
where the bedbug luxuriates, and even the book-agent lurketh 
around, with his brazen cheek burnished more elaborately than 
usual, to meet the exigencies of the situation. So moves the 
car of progress; so the ''star of empire westward takes its 
way," and civilization's march is onward toward the gateway of 
the setting sun. This condition of things is merely the fore- 
runner of the true civilization, — the darkness before the dawn, 
disorder before order, chaos before creation. 

The men and women who constitute the society of such 
places merely prepare the way for better men and women. 
They are as rude, as barbarous, and more degraded than the 



256 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



savage. The ancient heathen worshipped wooden images, and 
sacrificed their bodies under the wheels of Juggernaut's car : 
these worship perishable gold, adore filthy greenbacks, and 
sacrifice their souls in pursuit of the pleasure that money can 
buy. 

Walking up the straggling streets, we find the houses in 
irregular rows, and fronting on the streets at every possible 
angle of incidence. The houses are mostly of the dry-goods- 
box style of architecture, the fronts covered with roughly 
painted signs for the purpose of letting the world know the 



V^c — 



_.- 














\^ 



:?fe^Mt?:r 



'• • 1' I ^~ i;? 






VI .1 < 






// 



/ 





STREET-SCENE IN LULING. 



proprietor's business, and how badly he can spell. Here is a 
restaurant where the owner advertises " Squar Meals at Reson- 
able Figgers, and Bord by the Day or Weak;" next, a Chi- 
nese laundry ; then a beer-saloon ; across the street a gun-shop ; 
next to it a saloon ; then a bakery, a saloon, another saloon 
with billiards, a lumber-yard, a dance-house, a restaurant, a 
free-and-easy, a saloon, a shooting-gallery, a faro-bank, a gro- 
cery, a saloon and hotel, a ten-pin alley, a concert-hall ; and so 
on to the end of the street. Queer and suggestive signs some 
of these whiskey-dens have, — " The Sunset," " The How- 



A RAILROAD TERMINUS. 257 

Come-You-So," ''The Panther's Den ;" and on one, in a North- 
Texas town, is inscribed the legend, " Road-to-Ruin Saloon — 
Ice-cold Beer 5 cts. a Skooner." 

While passing the Dew-Drop-Inn saloon, we were startled 
by several pistol-shots being fired in quick succession inside 
the house, and only a few feet from us. Assuming a safe posi- 
tion behind a convenient cotton-bale, we awaited the develop- 
ment of events. A loud-talking crowd was in the saloon. The 
crash of glass, and the fragments of billiard-cues that came 
whizzing out of the door, indicated that somebody was raising 
Gehenna inside. As the shooting ceased, the crowd came pour- 
ing out, carrying the limp form of a man who was shot in the 
leg, had a bullet in his left lung, and was bleeding profusely 
from a knife-cut on the neck. Inquiry elicited the information 
that he was a cowboy, who, being on a ''high lonesome," en- 
tered the saloon, and incontinently began discharging his six- 
shooter at the lamps and mirrors behind the bar. This, it 
seems, is a favorite pastime with the high-spirited cattle-kings 
in their moments of enthusiasm. The role had been enacted, 
however, with such frequency, of late, that it began to pall 
on the taste of the spectators. What was at first a tragedy, 
exciting and dramatic, was now but a vapid, piece of very 
weak comedy of questionable taste and doubtful propriety. So 
thought the barkeeper ; and he emphasized his views by placing 
a few bullets where he thought they would do the most good, 
and have the most mollifying effect. The wounds were fatal. 
The playful cowboy died, and, as a bystander remarked, " never 
knew what hurt him." 

The barkeeper was never tried. In less than twenty-four 
hours this "difficulty," as it was called, passed out of the pub- 
lic mind in the light of a fresh and more interesting incident 
of a like character, where two men were killed, and one woman 
dangerously wounded. 

So long as a town remains the terminus of a railroad in 
Western Texas, it presents the characteristics described. The 
roughest of wild frontiersmen and desperadoes congregate 
there. It is what is called, in the classic vernacular of the 
country, "a hoorah place." As soon as the terminus is located 
17 



258 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

ten or twelve miles farther west, a new town springs up, the 
rowdy element moves out of the old one, half of the houses are 
moved off to the new town, and the place, wrecked and dis- 
mantled, is left to the few people who came to stay. It is then 
that the real progress and civilization begins. Brick houses 
take the place of the wooden ones carried away ; the bullet- 
holes in the doors and shutters are filled with putty ; the brazen 
noise of the music-hall is hushed, and in its stead the voice of 
the Methodist circuit-rider is heard singing the songs of Zion. 

Some years ago the trapper, the hunter, and the ox-wagon 
pioneer formed a transition state between the end of savagery 
and the beginning of civilization. The change and develop- 
ment were gradual : they may be compared to the cathedral at 
Cologne. One generation after another added wing after wing ; 
there was pleasing variety in the architecture ; each addition 
merged harmoniously into the preceding one ; and all had their 
history and associations. The whole structure was the result 
of growth upon growth, change after change, until little of the 
original could be recognized. The slow march of improvement 
in our ancestors' days allowed time for mellowing down the 
acute angles incident to new structures, — allowed time for the 
growth of architectural light and shade, for the adornment of 
homes, and for the cultivation of social amenities. Now the 
civilization incident to railroad extension moves, as it were, by 
columns, and in forced marches. No advance guard of skir- 
mishing pioneers hew out the way : the change is sudden, 
startling, and decidedly characteristic of American civilization, 
— a sudden substitution of a busy community for a hitherto 
untrodden wilderness. The benefits that are thus gained in 
time are counterbalanced by the newness and the monotonous 
rectangularity of every object presented to the eye. The dis- 
tressingly geometrical construction of every thing — from an 
easy-chair to a court-house, from a spittoon to a watering- 
trough — is very offensive to the eye that has been accustomed 
to the rounding and mellowing effect produced by the hand of 
time. 

These headstrong, irresistible pioneers have not time to 
think that the curvilinear is the line of beauty ; and, if they 



LITTLE MAY. 259 

should think of it, it would only be as of a thing associated 
with a future and more luxurious age. They are in that state 
where beauty and ornamentation are subservient to utihty and 
economy. 

In the hotel where we were stopping, there was a guest 
whose name, as the register showed, was Joseph P. Maxwell, 
but who was better known among his associates and the people 
of the town as "Monte Joe." He had been in Luling about 
three months. No one knew where he came from, and no one 
cared to know. He had stepped off the train one morning, 
had registered at the hotel, and in three days afterwards was 
on speaking terms with one-half of the male population of the 
place. 

In a town like Luling, society was not exacting. A stranger 
was not required to exhibit credentials, nor to state who his 
grandfather was, as a condition of entree into society. In fact, 
society was of a mixed character, — if it had any character at 
all, — and could not afford to be particular. Monte Joe was 
handsome, well dressed, and of genial manners. He brought 
a blue-eyed, sunny-haired child with him,- — his daughter, — a 
smiling, laughing, little fairy, who captured the hearts of all 
who knew her. In her presence the cares of life vanished ; and 
the people felt, as they listened to her joyous, childish prattle, 
that, after all, this world was not such a vale of tears as they 
had thought it was. 

Little May saw but the rosy-hued side of the clouds that 
encircled her life. She loved the bright sunshine, the birds, 
and the flowers ; she loved music and pictures : but above all, 
and with a greater and stronger love, she loved her father, 
Monte Joe the gambler. These two, father and daughter, 
seemed to live for each other, and in the light of their mutual 
love. 

Joe's face had a worn, sad look, except when he was playing 
with the child! Then there was a soft, happy light in his eyes, 
and a womanly look on his handsome face. When he got ex- 
cited at the gambling-table, and swofe, or when he was insulted 
or annoyed, — then the sadness and womanliness vanished, and 
his eyes gave evidence of the devil within. 



26o 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



It must be acknowledged that Joe was much given to the 
vice of swearing, but he never swore in the child's presence. 
It was pretty well known that he was ready at all times to 
back any statement that he might make, and to give his oppo- 
nent choice of weapons. His friends claimed that he never 
" took water ; " but it must not be inferred from this that he 
declined to use water as a beverage. It was only their terse 
way of explaining that he was a brave man. Joe was not a 
bully : he never sought a quarrel ; but, as those who knew him 
said, when a quarrel was forced upon him, "he was there." It 
was rumored that he had killed three men, but that did not de- 
tract from his stand- 
ing in a community 
where killing a man 
was often a neces- 
sity and a praise- 
worthy action. No 
one could tell any 
thing about Joe's 
history previous to 
his advent in Lu- 
ling. He never re- 
ceived any letters, 
and he never wrote 
any. Regarding the 
past, he was reti- 
cent. He and the child seemed to be alone in the world. 
Little May had never known any relatives except her father. 
Joe wore a deep band of crape on his hat. He was father and 
mother and all to her, and she was all the world to him. The 
boys used to say, that, if the child should die, her death would 
kill Joe. Amid such surroundings, and associating with such 
characters as of necessity little May was compelled to associate 
with, it was a wonder that the child retained her childishness. 
There was nothing pert or precocious in her words or actions ; 
although she sometimes had quaint ways of expressing herself, 
and would ask queer and startling questions. She played but 
little with other children. When her father was absent, she 




LITTLE MAY. 



FAIR Y-TALES. 2 6 1 

would amuse herself in a corner, for hours at a time, with the 
end of an old billiard-cue dressed in rags for a doll. This doll 
was the recipient of all her secrets. She would tell it how 
lonely she was when papa was away, how much she loved papa, 
and what beautiful things she was going to sew and "broider" 
for him when she became a big girl. Her greatest desire was 
to get, '*to wear all the time Qvery day," as she expressed it, 
some old jewelry that her papa kept in a trunk, and used to 
bring out and show to her when they were alone on Sunday 
mornings. ''And, Dolly," the child would say, "I wish you 
was big too, that you might tell me what makes papa cry when 
he puts that pretty chain around my neck. Papa says he will 
tell me some day, when I's a big girl, when we live in a pretty 
little house that will be May's own house, with vines all around 
it, and pictures on the walls, and a bird in a gold cage. Then 
I'll let nobody live there but papa — and you, Dolly, if you be 
good." 

She told stories to the doll about giants — bad and wicked 
giants — who ate little children, and afterwards came to an un- 
timely end, as all bad and wicked giants should. Papa killed 
all the giants, and it was papa who rescued all the children who 
were in danger from bears and lions. And the child added 
something to every story, wherein ''.papa" figured as the 
champion of the oppressed, the benefactor of the poor, and the 
good angel who guarded the virtuous. 

As little May walked down the street with her father, women 
who had lost all their womanliness — and there were many such 
in the town — spoke in hushed tones in her presence. To them 
she was a speck of gold in a mass of baser metal, a ray of 
light from a better world, a bright piece of color on a sombre 
background. As her childish words and joyous laugh smote 
the ears of those, who, although now hardened with the world's 
folly, had still a woman's heart, they were moved by her fresh- 
ness and purity ; and the unbidden tear often coursed down 
their cheeks, as they thought of the time when they, too, were 
but a little lower than the angels. 

And so they went on from day to day, little May and her 
father. From the nature of Joe's profession, he was at leisure 



262 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

during the day. In the summer mornings, while yet the dew- 
was on the grass, he and the child would be seen passing down 
the street, out by the cemetery, past the straggling huts and 
tents where the railroad hands lived, on into the woods, — the 
child sometimes on her father's back or in his arms ; sometimes, 
running along by his side, chasing the butterflies and the hum- 
ming-birds, or gathering the wild-flowers of the prairie. Down 
by the banks of the clear stream they would go, — down into the 
valley, where, in the sunlight, grew the flowers and grasses (a 
rich and beautiful carpet of Nature's weaving), while in the 
shade the fern and the vine flourished in luxurious profusion, — 
down in the groves of the valley, with their patches of light and 
shade, where Nature's choristers chanted carols of joy, and 
sang songs of welcome. There in some quiet nook they staid 
and played and laughed all through the long summer day, — the 
father telling fairy-tales to the child ; the little one weaving 
crowns of leaves for her father's head, and garlands of flowers 
for his neck. It was there that Joe the gambler told little 
May, in words suited to her understanding, the old, old story of 
man's creation and woman's disobedience, of God's love and 
compassion, and of the Saviour's suffering. He told her of 
heaven and of the angels there, and of the joy and peace and rest 
in the home of the good beyond this life. Joe was a sceptic, 
and would have claimed that he did not believe these tales any 
more than he believed the other fairy-tales that he told to the 
child ; but he felt, that although he could do without a religion 
and a God himself, yet he could not afford to let his child be- 
lieve as he did. With a strange inconsistency, he acted as if the 
belief that was good enough for himself was not good enough 
for his "little one," as he loved to call her ; ai^d he taught her, 
as well as he could, the religion of his mother. 

The God that the child was taught to love was not the God 
that we, in our childhood, were taught to fear, — a being whose 
chief attributes were wrath, anger, and revenge. They tried 
to teach us to love him by telling of the calamities he would 
send on us in the present, and the seething hell he would con- 
sign us to in the future, if we whistled on Sunday, or failed to 
enjoy reading the genealogical tables and narratives of kingly 



LITTLE MAY'S GOD. 263 

atrocities and priestly fallibilities contained in the Bible. They 
pointed out to us the passage in the Good Book where we were 
informed that '* God is angry with the wicked every day ; " and 
then they explained to us how totally wicked and depraved we 
were. This was not the God that little May believed in. Her 
God was one that loved little children, — one that came down to 
earth, and took little ones in his arms, — one whose heart was 
full of love and compassion, and who gave life and health where 
the God they tried to force on us sent death and torment. To 
little May, God was a real though unseen personage, who got 
credit equally with her father for providing all the good things 
she received. She talked to him when alone ; and, every night 
when she prayed, she asked him to send papa home safe, often 
adding, ** and make him bring some candy too." Her faith in 
God and in her father was wonderful. 

One day Joe was walking down the street with little May by 
his side, when a man stepped out of a saloon, and cursed him, 
accusing him of having acted unfairly at the gambKng-table. 
He slapped Joe on the face. Joe became very pale, and trem- 
bled so that one not knowing him would have supposed that he 
was afraid. For a moment he looked irresolutely at the child 
by his side ; then, taking her up in his arms, he hurried to the 
hotel. Not a word was said by Joe or any of the spectators. 
It was some time before those who were witnesses to the oc- 
currence recovered enough from their surprise at the temerity 
of the man who had insulted Joe, to offer any criticisms on 
his action. Then the saloon-keeper, looking up at the sky with 
half-closed eyes, as if he were making an abstruse astronomical 
calculation, remarked, "There'll be a dead man round some- 
whar to-night." 

It was a true prediction. The jury said that Joe was justifi- 
able. 

During the second day of our stay in Luling the doctor was 
called on by the landlord, and requested to go and see little 
May, who was sick. " Five weeks ago," said the landlord, "she 
was out with her father down by the creek, and came home 
with a sort of dumb chill, and she hasn't got over it yet, and 
I'm afeerd she never will. God knows that we would rather 



264 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

part with the best man in town than with little May, we all 
love her so ! " 

It appeared, that, from the day on which May became ill, she 
had never left her room. Day by day she became more feeble, 
and now for a week she had been unable to leave her little bed. 
The people of the town talked lovingly of her patience in suf- 
fering, and showed their sympathy and love for her by sending 
fruits and flowers, toys and fancy groceries enough to have 
made Santa Claus envious ; and one big Irish tie-spiker sent 
her a bottle of whiskey, with a message that she '' would foind 
a drap av it, wid hot wather and shugar, moighty comfortin' 
whin the chills took hoult." The people were all very consid- 
erate of her comfort. The owner of the ten-pin alley closed 
the place for a week, rather than disturb her with the noise ; 
and the landlord, with a club, knocked down a man who had 
startled the child by shooting a negro on the sidewalk. 

I accompanied the doctor in his visits several times. We 
found the little one cheerful and happy, as she sat propped up 
with pillows at the head of her bed. She was gazing out of a 
window, across the tree-tops, at the place where, with her father, 
she had spent so many happy hours, and where the wild-flowers 
now bloomed for other eyes, and the birds sang for other ears ; 
for nevermore would little May visit the place, or leave her 
room again. 

It was on the eve of the day before we left Luling that we 
saw her for the last time. Her father was going to her room 
with medicine. He told us she was much better, and that he 
thought the crisis was over. He invited us to go and see 
her. 

We entered the room on tiptoe. On a small bed by the win- 
dow lay little May. Her face was thin and pale, and but the 
shadow of a dimple was on her cheek. Her eyes had a sober, 
suffering, far-away look, until she saw Joe coming in behind us. 
Then her eyes brightened up until they shone like stars, the 
pained look on her face gave way to a smile, and the dimple for 
an instant came back to her cheek. Joe sat down on a low 
chair by her side, and we stood around her bed. She reached 
out her thin little arms toward her father. 



DEATH OF LITTLE MAY. 



265 



- The doctor says I am going to 



die and leave you. Is it true, 



'^'nerfather buried his face m the pillow, and^sobbed. 



and 



„'t have anv more nice picnics together ; 
" Then, papa, we won t hav e any m v ^^^.^ 

d I'll have to go to heaven alone, all by myseii. 




I QrT^a.^'? )ie^cMr . 



DEATH OF LITTLE MAY. 



c- --- - r;T;r^atCrL:i';o:eter^:^ 

ry lo^;"; te b^::::^:;;. and f n never go away fro. you 

any more." ^^^^ ^^hind the distant hori- 

The last rays ot the sun, as 



266 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



zon, lights up her face with a rosy tint, as with an effort she 
puts her arms around Joe's neck, and whispers, *' My poor, 
lonely old papa ! " 

Then all is still. There is no sound in the room, except the 
tick-tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece, as it registers 
the flow of the river of time into the ocean of eternity ; but 
musical echoes of the jubilant song of the heavenly visitants 
around the bed of little. May on earth reach to the gates of 
heaven itself. The angel sentinels on the walls of the golden 
city take up the refrain, and the glad chorus resounds through 
all the corridors of the heavenly mansion, until it bursts in ex- 
ultant hosannas around the throne of God. 

Little May is dead. 




^ 




ANCIENT IDOL. 



MODERN IDOL. 



THE ''DRY YEARr 



267 



CHAPTER XX. 




Vx--^» 



v\n^ 



»^ STARTED from Luling 
.iT'* at six o'clock in the 
morning. By eleven 
it was so hot that we 
were compelled to 
seek shade and rest. 
There had been no 
rain for six weeks ; 
and the natives were 
beginning to predict 
that this would be as 
bad as 1857, the dry 
year in Western Tex- 

''' '*"'■" ' as. In that year the 

drought killed all the crops ; and there was nothing raised, not 
even an umbrella, during the whole season. One man told us 
that we were bound to have rain sooner or later ; and, when it 
did come, it would be a deluge, and there would be no tellmg 
when it would quit raining, -that it would be like unto a great 
dam broken loose. There had been a great many damns break- 
in- loose from the exasperated farmer, he said ; but they had 
had no perceptible effect on the meteorological condition of 

Western Texas. 

For three thousand years, more or less, we have all been 
bored nearly to death hearing and reading about how much 
superfluous wisdom Solomon was endowed with. Among other 
sayings of his, that are being continually inflicted on the public, 
is one to the effect that '^here is nothing new under the sun.' 
Wonder if Solomon ever saw any thing like Western Texas 



268 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



weather ! It is new every day, and sometimes two or three 
times a day. It may snow and hail in the morning ; about 
dinner-time the clouds will let their garnered fulness down; 
and in the evening you can have Italian sunset and moonlight, 
palm-leaf fans, and ice-cream. The man who undertakes to 
predict the weather, and makes one bull-eye in a possible 
ninety-nine, is doing better than can seventy-five of the oldest 
inhabitants. 

Texas is infested with people who predict sudden changes in 
the weather. The weather-sharp is an alleged prophet, who 
tries to make people believe he is more intimate with the cli- 
mate than anybody else in the whole 
community. One would suppose, to 
hear him talk, that he slept with the 
clerk of the weather, who adopted 
his suggestions. He is to be found 
everywhere. All he wants is a cli- 
mate ; any climate will do, even a 
second-hand one; but he has to have 
some little climate to start with, and 
then he makes up all the rest of the 
climate as he goes along. Dr. Kane 
found weather-sharps up among the 
Esquimaux, within three and a half 
inches, on the map, of the north pole. 
They would predict by infallible signs, 
that within three days the weather would be so sultry you might 
go in bathing *'mit nodings on." Sta.nley found weather-sharps 
in the heart of Africa, who, when it was hot enough to cause 
the mercury to knock the end off a three-foot thermometer, 
would swear it was impossible for forty-eight hours to pass over 
without a norther. It is as ridiculous to talk of a sober inebri- 
ate or an honest thief as it is to talk about a truthful weather- 
sharp. Originally, perhaps, they were not so depraved. They 
do not reach the hard-pan of wickedness, the bed-rock of de- 
pravity, at once. At first they begin by predicting what kind 
of weather is going to be on the day following ; and they keep 
it up until finally, losing all moral restraint, they will tell you 




mm « 



.ii4& 



THE WEATHER-SHARP. 




THE WEATHER-SHARP. 269 

to a day how many millions of years it will be before the earth 
will become a lump of solid ice, or fall into the sun and burn 
up everybody, including the weather-sharp. In no other instance 
do they ever predict any thing pleasant or favorable. They 
become reckless and desperate, and inflict a six-months' drought 
or an unheard-of severe winter on a helpless population with- 
out winking. And yet, if some public benefactor were to brain 
one of these climatic frauds, half the newspapers would be 
shocked, and say the act was injudicious, and calculated to 
discourage immigration ; whereas the reverse is the truth. What 
immigrants are going to come to a country where these weather- 
fiends go about tampering with the elements, interfering with 
the seasons, and making everybody afraid to go out fishing on 
Sunday for fear there will be an earthquake or a deluge before 
he can get back } 

It is a sight to exasperate a saint, to observe one of those old 
graven images inspect the clouds, as if he had furnished the 
material they were made of, rub the end of his chin on his 
palm, and drawl, "Well, I reckon, boys, if we don't have a change 
within a week, we are in for a right smart spell of weather, if old 
Uncle Billy knows any thing about it; and you bet he does." 
Occasionally this venerable monument of the good nature or 
negligence of the fool-killer will tr}^ to ring in wild ducks, squir- 
rels, and even the shells of the pecan-nuts, as joint conspirators 
against the public peace of mind. He is the outcast who started 
the superstition that wild ducks are a forerunner of cold weather, 
and many there are who still follow the delusion. They put on 
flannels and winter clothes, and buy firewood when it is higher 
than four dollars a load ; and then warm weather sets in for six 
weeks, and they sweat and swear, and are afraid to take off their 
warm dry-goods for fear of catching cold. It is the weather- 
sharp who induced soft-headed people to believe that the 
amount of pecans the squirrel stores away in his vaults has 
something to do with the kind of a winter that has been ordered 
for the occasion. If the squirrels lay up plenty of pecans, it is 
because the mast is abundant. When there are no pecans, the 
prudent squirrel does not lay up any, not even if the winter 
should last for six months. 



270 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

The squirrel himself has better sense than to believe in such 
humbug. When he looks out of the garret-window of a four- 
story tree, and sees the young man of the period riding out 
in a buggy in his last winter's coat, the squirrel doesn't say, 
** Young men are wearing their winter clothes already. I must 
lay in firewood, and the children have got to have nev^ under- 
clothes, and I need an overcoat, and Mrs. Squirrel will have 
to get a new fall bonnet. This is going to be a hard winter, 
because young men wear winter clothes early." You never 
hear of a squirrel emitting any such nonsense. He thinks for 
himself, and muses correctly : " That young man wears his 
winter coat thus early because he had to take his duster to the 
pawnbroker to raise money to pay the buggy-hire." 

And about pecan-shells. It is said that when they are hard, 
the winter is going to be cold — as if a pecan had a sixty-three 
ounce brain. An investigation will show that two trees within 
fifty yards of each other will bear pecans the shells of which, 
differ very much in thickness. 

This brings me naturally to another subject that I have 
already alluded to, — the Texas climate, and what it is good for. 
The climate is an unabridged one, and I feel that I would be 
doing it an injustice if I did not devote a page or two to it. 

When the pious old Spanish missionaries first came to West- 
ern Texas to convert the Indians — and every thing else they 
could lay their hands on — to their own use, they noticed the 
extreme balminess of the atmosphere, the gorgeous Italian sun- 
sets, and the superior quality of the climate. They were sur- 
prised to think that the Creator would waste so much good 
climate on the wicked heathen. Back where they all came from, 
— where the folks were all good Catholics, and observed two 
hundred and eleven holy days in the year, — they couldn't raise 
as much climate in twelve months as they could harvest in 
Western Texas in one short week. 

In the early days of the Republic of Texas, and even after 
annexation, many of the white men who came to Western Texas 
from all parts of the United States had strong sanitary reasons 
for preferring a change of climate. To be more explicit, most 
of the invalids had been threatened with symptoms of throat- 



THE TEXAS CLIMATE. 271 

disease. So sudden and dangerous is this disease, that the 
slightest delay in moving to a new and milder climate is apt to 
be fatal, — the sufferer dying of dislocation of the spinal verte- 
brcB at the end of a few minutes and a rope. 

A great many men, as soon as they heard of Western Texas, 
left their homes in Arkansas, Indiana, and other States, — left 
immediately, between two days ; the necessity of their departure 
being so urgent that they were obliged to borrow the horses 
they rode to Texas on. All these invalids recovered on reach- 
ing San Antonio. In fact, they began to feel better, and to 
consider themselves out of danger, as soon as they crossed the 
Guadalupe River. Some of them, who would not have lived 
twenty-four hours longer if they had not left their old homes, 
reached a green old age in Western Texas, and, by carefully 
avoiding the causes that led to their former troubles, were never 
again in any danger of the bronchial affection already referred 
to. As soon as it was discovered that the climate of Western 
Texas was favorably disposed toward invalids, a large number 
of that class of unfortunates came to San Antonio. Many 
well-authenticated cases of recoveries are recorded. Men have 
been known to come to San Antonio suffering with consump- 
tion, and so far recover as to be able to run for office within a 
year, and to be defeated by a large and respectable majority, 
all owing to the dry atmosphere, and the popularity of the other 
candidate. 

There is very little winter in Western Texas. But for the 
northers, San Antonio would have a tropical climate, as it is 
situated on the same parallel of latitude as Cairo in Egypt, 
where they have tropics all the year round. As it is, there is 
seldom any frost, although it is not an unusual thing for lumps 
of ice several inches thick to be found in tumblers by those 
who go to market in the early morning. Occasionally New- 
Year's calls are made in white linen suits and an intoxicated 
condition. Spring begins seriously in February. The forest- 
trees put on their beautiful garments of green, and the fruit- 
trees come out in bloom. Prairie-flowers and freckles come 
out in this month, and the rural editor begins to file away spring 
poetry. In February stove-pipes are laid away in the wood- 



272 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

shed, and the sirup-of-squills and " Kough-Kure " man puts a 
coat of illuminated texts on the garden-fence. Seed-ticks are 
not pulled until April. Early in March the doctors oil their 
stomach-pumps ; for the green mulberry ripens about that time, 
and has to be removed from the schoolboy. 

Toward the middle of April the early peach appears ; and all 
nature — and the druggist — smiles, ushering in the long and 
lingering summer-time, when the ice-cream festival of the 
Church of the Holy Embarrassment rageth from one end of 
fair and sunny Texas to the other. 

Such is a short synopsis of the varying features of the Texas 
climate, as described to me by an old veteran. He also told 
me that there used to be a very peculiar fruit in Western Texas, 
that of late years has become quite scarce. It was something 
in the nature of a parasite, like the mistletoe, growing on 
almost any kind of tree, but generally preferring those with 
wide-spreading branches, from which it hung pendent. It 
ripened at almost any season. There was a great deal of this 
fruit collected by the coroner in Wilson County in i860. 
While it no longer grows wild, so to speak, in the forest, it is 
still cultivated with much success in enclosed yards — jail-yards 
principally. 

Almost all kinds of fruit that grow in the Northern States 
can be successfully raised in Texas. Figs and grapes grow in 
great quantities, and attain a large size. Two kinds of grapes 
are indigenous to the soil, — mustang, and a small variety of 
sweet winter grape. Wine can be made from either kind, and 
drunk with highly unsatisfactory results. The farmers probably 
do not know how to make it. The stuff they manufacture and 
call wine is sour enough to pucker up the mouth of a cannon. 

The proprietor of the Houston " Age " told me that an old 
farmer from the Brazos once presented the marine editor of 
the "Age" with a complimentary bottle of native mustang 
wine in return for three-years' subscription he was owing. 
The old salt, who compiled the shipping intelligence for the 
columns of the "Age," was so carried away with gratitude, 
that he wrote a juicy editorial on Fort Bend County claret, 
telling how superior it was to the imported article, which was 



EFFECTS OF THE CLARET. 273 

usually adulterated. He recommended it for medicinal pur- 
poses on account of its being the pure juice of the grape, and 
wound up by calling the old farmer the people's benefactor. 

The editor was an old traveller, and too smart to drink any 
of the diabolical stuff. He had a family dependent on his 
exertions : he was afraid that taking a glass of the healthful 
beverage might invalidate his life-insurance policy, even if it 
failed in more fatal results. But the printers were young men, 
and of strong constitution. The editor sent one of them the 
bottle of wine along with the article on the Fort Bend County 
claret, which was to be set up immediately. 

After refreshing himself with a long pull at the bottle, the 
printer went to work. He had set up the first part — about the 
wine being good for medicinal purposes — before the stuff began 
to take effect. The colic was so severe that he could not stand 
up to pick the type ; and, when he did set up a line between the 
spasms, his type and his talk were rather contradictory. When 
he got to the length of *' delicious flavor, and beneficial effects 
on the digestive organs," the cramps got him, and he gave 
vent to his feelings in the most horrible profanity, cursing the 
wine, the villain who made it, and the editor who gave it to 
him. When he got the type straightened out to read, *' This 
native wine of Texas is equal to the wine presented by the 
priests of Apollo to Ulysses, and which he described as lus- 
cious, pure, and worthy the palate of the gods : the wine of 
the native mustang grape will sustain the enervated energies 
of the invalid, and nerve the strong arm of the warrior to deeds 
of noble daring," he gave a howl, and ground his teeth to- 
gether, as he yelled, *' Oh, Lordy ! how I wish I had the ener- 
vated invalid who sent me that liquid shoe-blacking! Canaan's 
happy shore ! Wouldn't I make him sorry that he had nerved 
the strong arm of the warrior with the [profanity] diabolical 
stuff ! " 

Then he set up, "This wine, being the pure juice of the 
grape, and unadulterated, is suitable for sacramental purposes." 
Again he was doubled up ; and as he pressed his hands on his 
stomach, and rolled on the floor, he said, " I always did hate 
a [more profanity] fool, anyhow. If I had the low assassin who 



274 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



sent me that wine here — soul of Bacchus ! wouldn't I sacrifice 
him ! and that other old atrocity who made the stuff, how I'd 
like to see him hanging on one of his own sour-grape vines ! 
— Jim, you unfeeling young pup, why don't you run for some 
whiskey, or a doctor, or something ? Want to see me die in 

my tracks, do you ? " [Pro- 
longed profanity.] 

The typographical errors 
in the article on "The Cul- 
ture of the Native Grape " 
were so dreadful that the 
man who presented the wine 
to the editor stopped his pa- 
per. 

I have not quite got 
through telling about the 
wonders of the Texas cli- 
mate yet. As it was one of 
the most remarkable cases 
of a consumptive being cured 
after he had exhausted every 
known remedy, and when both of his lungs were gone, I have 
concluded to put it on record as illustrating the advantages 
Texas has to offer in the way of salubrity of climate. 

His name was Crank. He was from Syracuse, N.Y., and 
was suffering from lung-disease. He came to Texas, hoping 
that the climate might benefit him. He came, however, when 
it was too late to hope for much improvement in his condi- 
tion. 

Away out on the hills, fifty miles west of San Antonio, the 
air is pure, there is no dampness in the atmosphere, and per- 
sons suffering with consumption, and going there in the early 
stages of the disease, are either cured, or have their days length- 
ened. This man. Crank, went to Boerne, but his health did 
not improve there. Boerne is a resort of consumptives ; and 
he found too many invalids like himself, — invalids who talked 
about themselves and their poor remnants of lungs, and coughed 
and groaned all night. The hotels and boarding-houses smelled 




RUN FOR WHISKEY OR A DOCTOR." 



OLD SANGERFEST. 



275 



like drug-stores, and the invalids drank to each other's better 
health in cod-liver oil until they smelled like ancient fishermen. 

Mr. Crank moved out to Fredericksburg, — a town built on a 
high hill, and inhabited by Germans and beer-kegs. He took 
lodgings in the only hotel in the place, the Schvviker House, 
kept by a jolly Teuton, who was so rosy and cheerful that his 
very presence was better than the prescription of a doctor, and 
one of his jokes as good as a whole barrel of cod-Hver oil. This 
old Sangerfest took quite a liking to the invalid, and determined 
to do all in his power to make him comfortable, and to cure 
him if possible. 

I saw the sick man on his way to Fredericksburg. He was 
weak, and hardly able to sit in the wagon. Three wrecks after- 
wards I met the landlord of the Schwiker House. 

'' Hello, old Schutzen-Verein, where is our sick friend } " 

"Oh, dot sick man } He vas gone died already ; but I cures 
him all de same, better as goot." 

"How was that t " 

" Vel, I tole you how it vas. Dot man, he vas very sick ven 
he cooms to mine house yet. 
He vas not like dot feller what 
pays nodings, and vants der 
pest room in der house. No, 
mine grashus ! he vas not like 
dot. He care not much for 
any tings. He makes no 
racket like dot oder feller, / 
because dose sheets vas damp. 
His abbetite vas s© schmall 
he eats not much : so I likes 
dot man, und I .gives him 
some exdra tings dot I not 
scharge for. I nurse him all 

der time ; but he got pooty bad, and more worse every day, 
and von time he calls me to his room, und he says, — 

" ' Fritz, I am going dead, und I vants dose remains sent to 
New York to mine vife.* He say, ' Fritz, you vas mine friend ; 
you vas goot to me ; you vill not refuse to promise to a dead 




OLD SANGERFEST. 



276 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



man vat he ask. Mine vife, she vas a goot womans, Fritz : 
she expected dot I vould be cured down here. She vill be 
sorry, but you express me to her ven I vas dead already.' 

" I had to make dot promise : I could not refuse. I all der 
time keeps mine promise to a dead man ; and ven he vas dead 
as vun door-knob, I tinks vat I do mit him. It vas a very hot 
time, und he vould be decombosed if I sheep him to New York. 
I tought me of a vay, und I say, * Fritz, you vas schmart, — de 
doctor could not cure him : you can cure him, py shiminy ! ' 

So I dakes und puts him in 
a bath-tub mit pickle, und I 
pickles him two, tree day. 
Den I dakes und puts von 
schugar - barrel on top mit 
anoder, und hangs him up in 
der barrels, und I schmokes 
him for a veek. Den I 
sheep him to his vife in a 
box mit shtraw. I tole dot 
man ven he cooms I vould 
cure him. He gone died al- 
ready ; but I cures dot re- 
mains anyhow, py schingo ! " 
When Texas was admitted 
into the Union, the State re- 
tained control of her public 
domain. The title to all 
lands since disposed of em- 
anates from the State. During the early history of Texas, 
liberal donations of land were made to settlers, and to the 
soldiers who fought in the war with Mexico. Land-certificates 
were issued to those entitled to them ; and these certificates 
entitled the parties receiving them, or their assignees, to sur- 
vey, and to acquire title to, the number of acres covered by the 
certificate, the land to be selected out of any part of the public 
domain. Certificates for immense quantities of public land 
have been given to those companies that have built railroads 
in Texas. The land for which these certificates have been 







CURING A CONSUMPTIVE. 



SPANISH LAND-MEASURE, 



277 



issued can now be bought at prices ranging from twenty cents 
to one dollar per acre. In the original titles of Texas land, the 
quantity was expressed in varas, labors, and leagues ; and even 
now it is all measured by varas. 



SPANISH LAND-MEASURE. 



I vara . 
I acre . 
I labor . 
^ league 
I league 
I leasfue and labor 



33^ inches. 
5,646 square varas (4,840 square yards). 
1,000,000 square varas (177 acres). 
8,333.333 square varas (1,476 acres). 
25,000,000 square varas (4,428 acres). 
26,000,000 square varas (4,605 acres). 
To find th^ number of acres in a given number of square varas, divide 
by 5,646, fractions rejected. 

Land improved and ready for cultivation can be rented at 
from three to six dollars per acre, the rent payable when the 
crops are marketed. Land-owners will rent land, and furnish 
the tenant with a house to live in, and with all the tools and 
teams necessary to cultivate the land. He will accept, as rent, 
one-half of the crop raised. If the tenant furnishes tools and 
teams, the land-owner gets one-third of the corn and one-fourth 
of the cotton. When necessary, the land-owner furnishes pro- 
visions, for which the tenant pays out of his part of the crop. 
The law says that the crop cannot be moved from the farm 
until the rent, and allowance in money and provisions, are paid 
to the land-owner. Thousands of farmers have made enough 
money in a year or two, on rented land, to purchase farms for 
themselves. In doing this, the industrious German is especially 
liable to be successful. 

Article 2335 of the Revised Statutes of the State of Texas 
provides that the following property shall be reserved to every 
family, exempt from attachment or execution, and every other 
species of forced sale for the payment of debts, except as here- 
inafter provided. 

" I. The homestead of a family ; 2. All household and kitchen furniture; 
3. Any lot or lots in a cemetery held for the purpose of sepulture ; 4. All 
implements of husbandry ; 5. All tools, apparatus, and books belonging to 
any profession or trade ; 6. The family library, and all family portraits and 
pictures ; 7. Five milch cows and their calves ; 8. Two yoke of work-oxen, 



2^"^ ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

with necessary yolces and chains ; 9. Two horses and one wagon ; 10. One 
carriage or buggy; 11. One gun; 12. Twenty hogs; 13. Twenty head of 
sheep; 14. All saddles, bridles, and harness necessary for the use of the 
family; 15. All provisions and forage on hand for home consumption; and 
16. All current wages for personal services. 

"Art. 2336. The 'homestead' of a family, not in a town or city, shall 
consist of not more than two hundred acres of land, which may be in one 
or more parcels, with the improvements thereon ; the homestead in a city, 
town, or village, consisting of a lot or lots, not to exceed in value five thou- 
sand dollars at the time of their designation as the homestead, without ref- 
erence to the value of any improvements thereon ; provided that the same 
shall be used for the purpose of a home, or as a place to exercise the calling 
or business of the head of a family ; provided, also, that any temporary 
renting of the homestead shall not change the character of the same when 
no other homestead has been acquired." 



The homestead-law allows every head of a family in Texas 
two hundred acres of land that cannot be sold for debt. Some 
people, who have not got two liundred acres of land, are envi- 
ous enough to say that this law was made to enable the horny- 
handed farmer to sustain his family on fancy groceries, and to 
buy a piano for his daughter. They say it makes him feel, that, 
whatever may be his misfortune, there is one little spot on this 
earth he can call his own. The thought of death is robbed of 
its sting, and he has the satisfaction of knowing that his off- 
spring will be provided for, even if the children of his creditors 
have to content themselves with cornbread and a jew's-harp. 

The operation of the Texas homestead-law makes death a 
luxury, not only to the debtor, but also to the ruined creditor. 
It is said that it enables the bone and sinew of a country to 
feel calm and serene in the presence of an execution for debt, 
and encourages the honest farmer to defraud the merchant who 
sells him goods on credit. 

The advocates of this law say it is a wise measure, and was 
made to protect the wife and children from the action of the 
spendthrift head of a family. Its provisions prevent him from 
mortgaging the homestead. A Texan who does not own more 
than two hundred acres of land never has been known to sit in 
the back-room, and turn a bulldog loose in the front-yard on 
the first day of the month. The circumstances do not demand 



THE TEXAS HOMESTEAD LAW. 279 

any such precaution. He can afford to be courteous to those 
who dun him, to be even jocular with them on the subject of 
his debts. He invites them to go through his house, and see 
the modern improvements he has introduced at their expense. 
This is the reason that the facihties for amassing a fortune in 
Texas are so profuse. Nowhere else can a man, on such a 
small capital, and in the same length of time, reach to such 
affluence as the homestead-law enables him to attain in Texas. 
Circulars inviting immigration to Texas, and describing the 
advantages of the State, never fail to draw a touching picture 
of the beauty of the homestead-law, and the facilities it affords 
for evading the absurd and antique practice of paying debts. 

When it is hinted, as it very frequently is, to the friends of 
the homestead-law, that justice seems to be lop-sided in the 
matter, and that the wives and children of the storekeepers 
who supply the farmer, and who are daily defrauded by the 
action of the law, have rights as well as the farmer's family, 
and are deserving of equal protection with them, they reply, 
that " The law does not compel the storekeeper to sell goods 
on credit, therefore there is no injustice done him ; that, if he 
does sell on credit, it is at his own risk, for he is supposed to 
know the law ; that he can turn farmer, and get the benefit of 
the law, if he so desires, or he can sell out his stock of goods, 
invest in a city lot, build a fine house on it that no one can 
touch for debt, then live on credit, and thus enjoy the blessings 
of the beneficent homestead-law." 

This reminds one of the king of the island of Kawahowa and 
his parliament. The majority of the king's subjects made a 
living by fishing. The king and parliament declared that no 
person should pay to the fishermen more than a certain fixed 
price for fish, — about one-fourth of their value. The fishermen 
waited on his Majesty, and stated that they would be unable 
to make a living by selling fish at the prices specified, and 
hinted at the injustice of the law. His Majesty laid the matter 
before his parliament, the members of which were noted for 
their ability to consume vast quantities of the brain-fertilizer in 
question. They decided that "the decree does not compel 
those fishermen to be fishermen. They need not catch and 



28o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

sell fish unless they so desire. Knowing the law, they have no 
one to blame if they fail to make a success of the business. 
There is, therefore, no injustice done them. God save the 
king!" 

Besides the advantages that the homestead-law offers to the 
settler in Texas, there are many others that he shares when he 
casts his lot with the people of this great State. 




APPROACHING SAN ANTONIO. 



281 



CHAPTER XXI. 




WE drew near to San Antonio 

we saw many Mexicans. More 

than half the people we met or 

passed on the road, the day 

we reached San Antonio, were 

Mexican wagoners, — some 

driving mule-teams, others 

driving oxen ; the oxen not 

pulling the load, but pushing 

it with their heads, a cross-bar 

on the front of the pole being 

strapped to their horns with 

leather thongs. The teamsters 

- _1_ - ^ ~. .^^ ->-.--'' plod silently along beside their 

' --^^ slow teams: they never seem 

to be in a hurry, but act as if they had very little to do, and all 

time to do it in. 

I have never heard a Mexican teamster sing, but I have heard 
him sometimes curse his oxen. (Wonder if any one ever did 
drive an ox-team without cursing them !) Cursing an ox in the 
soft, musical, Spanish language, sounds like a benediction in 
Eno-lish. When an ox stalls, or becomes unusually obstinate, 
the Mexican driver realizes how inadequate the Spanish lan- 
guage is to meet the exigencies of the situation ; and it is 
said that on such occasions he has recourse to English ex- 
pletives. 

We met an old Mexican riding on a donkey. He rode with- 
out either saddle or bridle, and sat so far back on the donkey 
that his coat, hanging down, covered the tail of the animal. 



282 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Afterwards this was a common sight to us. All Mexicans ride 
donkeys in the same manner. 

" Buenos dias, senor ! " 

" Good-morning ! " 

" Is this the road to San Antonio ? " 

" Quien sabe ? " 

" How far is it to San Antonio ? " 

"No entiendo, senor." 

We put a variety of questions to the old man, and the doctor 
went so far as to recite to him two verses of " The Raven ; " but 
his invariable reply was, ''Quien sabe.'*" ("Who knows.-*") or 
" No entiendo " (" I do not understand "). 

The Mexican, however, seemed to enjoy the conversation 
very much, and bowed and smiled, and bowed again, when we 
parted with him. 

This conversation reminded me of Michael Sullivan's first 
lesson in Spanish. Michael was a hardy and honest Celt. He 

— 1 ^^^^ ^^ ol^ country with the 



price of a good farm in his 
pocket, came to Atascoso 
County, Texas, and bought a 
piece of raw land, — what is 
usually called an unimproved 
place. As he " couldn't get 
along wid the naygurs," he 
hired some of his own coun- 
trymen to clear the timber off 
the place. Needing more la- 
borers, and having mentioned 
the matter to his neighbor, 
Williams, Mr. Williams 
brought a Mexican to him. 

"Mr. Sullivan, here is a Mexican who wants work. I think 
he will suit you." 

'' Can he chop .? " 

" Oh, yes ! he can do most any thing. I have found him a 
good hand, and he'll work for fifteen dollars a month." 

"An' foind himsilf.?" 




"CAN HE CHOP?' 



MICHAEL SULLIVAN'S SPANISH LESSON 28, 




"Yes ; but he can't speak a word of English." 
"All the betther for that. I can't spake a word av Mixican, 
and I want to larn it. I'll tache him English, an' he can tache 
me the Mixican." 
" Yes ; a good idea." 

" Is these Mixicans obaydient to their supariors 1 I hope 
they are more biddable than 
the naygurs." 

" You need not fear that, 
Mr. Sullivan. This man 
Rodriguez will do any thing 
you tell him to do." 

"Well, thin, Rody, me 
boy," said Michael, " I've 
hired ye. Now take this 
axe, an' whale away at thim 
postoaks down there." 

" No entiendo, senor," 
said the Mexican. 

" The divil and Tom 
Walker ! Listen to what he is afther sayin', the haythen. He 
don't intind to. But the divil's cure to ye, I'll make ye intind 
to. See here, now : I've hired ye to work a month for fifteen 
dollars. No backin' out, now. Take that axe, an' don't give 
any lip, but go to work right at wanst." 
" No entiendo," said the Mexican. 
" Ye dont, eh .? " 

Off went Michael's coat ; and, before the greaser could realize 
what his new master's vigorous demonstrations meant, he found 
himself sprawling on his back, his mouth full of blood and sand, 
and a vague idea in his Aztec brain that he had been struck by 
lightning. Further bodily harm would have been done to him 
had Mr. Williams not interfered, and explained to the irate 
Michael what the Mexican meant. Michael was at last molli- 
fied, and shook hands with the discomfited greaser, but inti- 
mated that the " haythen desarved all he got for not spaking 
like a Christian." This was Mr. Sullivan's first Spanish 
lesson. 



TACHIN- A HAYTHEN. 



284 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

After parting with the old Mexican, we hurried on, that we 
might reach San Antonio before night. 

As the last rays of the setting sun were glorifying the hill- 
tops around us, we looked down into the valley, and there, below 
us, in the peaceful shadows of evening, lay the "quaint old city" 
of San Antonio, — the birthplace of Texas liberty, — the scene 
of heroic deeds, — the spot that "Freedom, from her mountain 
heights," used to grieve over, until her grief was assuaged by 
the sacrifice offered up at the Alamo, where one hundred and 
eighty-eight Americans held the fort for eleven days against a 
force of two thousand Mexicans, and where all the one hundred 
and eighty-eight Americans were killed, though not until thrice 
as many dead Mexicans gave evidence of the prowess of the 
heroic band led by Bowie, Travis, and Crockett. 

As we were too hungry to shed a tear, or to indulge in the 
thoughts and sentiments appropriate to such a scene, we turned 
our attention to our jaded ponies, and by gentle whipping, and 
an energetic use of the spur, encouraged them so much, that in 
half an hour we stood in the hall of the Menger Hotel, and re- 
alized that we were in a city that, in historic interest, romantic 
surroundings, and a strange, foreign aspect, has no equal in the 
United States. 

Historians agree that in 1602 there was a settlement at or 
near the present site of the city of San Antonio. This settle- 
ment was called San Fernando. I have obtained from the old 
records the following translation of the original royal order 
creating the Villa de San Fernando. This, I think, settles the 
date of the foundation of the town now called San Antonio. 

Don Juan de Acuna, Marquis de Casa Fiierte, Knight of the Order of Santiago, 
Conunander of Adelpha en los de Alcantara, representijig his Majesty, Supreme 
Military Covunander, Civic Executive Officer, Viceroy, Governor and Captain- 
General of New Spain, etc. : 

In that we have given several provinces, from this date forward, for 
the use and benefit of the fifteen families which, by the right of royal 
order, are coming from the Canary Islands, and which are now on their 
way to demand their right to possess the country that has been assigned 
them, among which is the presidio de San Antonio de Bexar ; and the 
necessary orders having been given by Brig. Pedro Rivera, and ap- 



ROYAL ORDER, A.D. 1730. 285 

proved by the auditor-general of war : therefore, by these presents, I do 
order the governor of the province of Texas, Don Juan Antonio Busta- 
mento, and, in case of his absence or other impediment, the captain of 
the said presidio de San Antonio, to take charge of the hst remitted of 
said fifteen famihes. He will make a note of their names and surnames, 
and also of those of their parents, and the county each of them was 
born in ; he will also make a note of their age, and as to whether they 
be single or married ; take the names of their wives and the parents 
of their wives, and record the place of their birth : and make record, 
also, as to whether their wives have children, the number of them, and 
the names and ages of such children. And by virtue of this despatch 
and law 6, book iv. of the Recapitulations of the Laws of the West 
Indies, in which his Majesty commands to honor all families, sons, and 
the legitimate descendants of all those who have pledged themselves to 
erect towns, and fulfilled their promises, the heads of these families are 
declared noblemen in that city which they propose to erect, or in any 
city of the West Indies, and will be recognized and held as noblemen 
and gentlemen of the Kingdom of Castile, according to the grants and 
laws of Spain. By these presents, therefore, we command that all of 
them, and each and every one of the heads of these fifteen families, 
their sons, and legitimate descendants of said noblemen, to be honored 
and respected as all the noblemen of the Kingdom of Castile, according 
to the grants and laws of Spain, and as his Majesty wishes done. And 
by virtue of this declaration, the necessary documents will be issued by 
my superior government whenever demanded. This despatch will re- 
main in the custody of the government at San Fernando, and you will 
inform the famihes, when they arrive, of the contents of this order. 

Be it further understood, that this despatch authorizes the governor 
to set six for councilmen, one for sheriff, one for notary public, and 
another for chief justice and custodian of public property. These shall 
have authority to appoint two justices of the peace. The governor will 
attend personally at the first meeting of the council, take the oath of 
office of those officers, and place them in possession of their respective 
positions, and will issue their commissions ; a certified copy of which 
proceedings he will remit to me for my approval : and he will also attend 
the first election for justices of the peace, and inform them of the systems 
and rules they will have to observe, of which testimony must likewise be 
remitted. And this being the first political town of this colony to be 
founded in the province of Texas, I declare it the capital of the province. 
It will be named " La Villa de San Fernando ; " but to his Majesty is re- 



286 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



served the authority of confirming the name, and selecting the coat of 
arms, according to his royal pleasure, subsequent to his being furnished 
with testimony, according to these presents, by the said governor or 
captain. 

(Signed) Marquis de Casa Fuerte. 



Dated at the city of Mexico, this 
28th November, A.D. [730. 



By command of his Excellency, 
Antonio de Avites. 



From the time that v^^e arrived in San Antonio until we left, 
we were continually being surprised by strange and un-Ameri- 
can sights. The city, with its narrow streets and queer build- 
ings, is much more like a provincial town in France or Spain 
than like our rectangular American cities. The Menger Hotel 
has a large courtyard inside the building. This yard is about 
a hundred feet square, is flagged with large, flat stones, has 
trees growing in it, and a stream of water flowing through it. 
Galleries run around the four sides of the buildings that sur- 
round the courtyard. Stone stairways lead from this courtyard 
to the hotel bedrooms. The doors of the rooms on the ground 
floor open from the courtyard ; and these bedrooms are carpet- 
less, and stone-flagged like the yard. The first night that I 
occupied an iron bedstead in one of these cells, and lay awake 
for hours listening to a mocking-bird whistling in a fig-tree at 
my window, I felt as if the United States must be a long way 
off. 

San Antonio is called the Alamo City, or the City of the 
Alamo. The inhabitants are very proud of the Alamo. They 
consider it a sacred duty to let the stranger know that he is in 
the city of the Alamo, and ought to be grateful that there is 
such a place to come to. The first thing that I noticed, when 
I stepped out at the side-door of the hotel in the morning, was 
an ice-wagon. I noticed it because the street was not wide 
■enough for both of us, and one of the wheels took a chip off my 
leg. ''Alamo Ice Company" was painted on the side of the 
wagon. I walked across the plaza to the Alamo drug-store to 
^et some arnica. An a2:ed o:entleman sittinsr in front of the 



CITY OF THE ALAMO. 287 

store seemed to take a great deal of interest in my misfortune, 
and recommended a bottle of Alamo liniment, — a medicine 
patented by the proprietor of the drug-store. The aged gentle- 
man, knowing I was a stranger, volunteered a vast amount of 
information. "This is the Alamo plaza," he said; "and that 
square building in the centre of the plaza is the Alamo meat- 
market." 

From where I stood I could see the Alamo livery-stable, 
the Alamo cigar-store, and the Alamo tin-shop. I was told 
that around the corner I could find the Alamo bakery, the 
Alamo brewery, the engine-house of the Alamo Fire Company, 
and the rooms of the Alamo Literary Society. The aged gen- 
tleman said there was some talk of building an Alamo monu- 
ment, that the name and fame of the historic spot might be 
kept before the people ; and I could not detect any sarcasm in 
the tone of his voice when he said it. I said that I was anxious 
to see the sacred premises, — the cradle in which Texas liberty 
was first rocked. The aged gentleman said he would take 
pleasure in showing it to me. We walked across the plaza, 
and around the market-house. 

" There, sir, is the old church of the Alamo ! " and the 
aged gentleman anchored himself to the pavement with his 
cane, swelled out his chest, and pointed proudly across the 
way, 

"What ! that flat -roofed building with the tree in front V 

"• No, no ! that is the Alamo saloon, — a point of interest that 
we shall visit presently." 

" Ah ! now I see, — the structure with the striped hitching- 
post in front. Quaint old building, very ! " 

" Pshaw, no ! That's the Alamo Tonsorial Arena, as they call 
it, where you can get shaved, and have your hair amputated, for 
four bits. Look to the left of that, — right over there." 

Now I see the original godfather of all these bits of scenery 
he has been pointing out. It is a low, massive structure, with 
an arched doorway, over which the Spanish coat-of-arms, the 
date 1745, and other carved work, are discernible. Four arched 
niches in the wall, intended for images of saints, also adorn 
the front. 



2SS ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Until a short time before I saw the Alamo, it had been used 
by the United-States Government as a quartermaster's depot, 
where old saddles, tobacco, blankets for Indians, and other 
munitions of frontier war, were stored. At the time of my 
visit, the building was used by a prominent San Antonio mer- 
chant as a warehouse in which he stored groceries and vegeta- 
bles. 

As the door was thrown open, and we stepped into the vault- 
like chamber, — the chapel of the old Alamo mission, — I sat 
down on a beer-keg, and allowed my mind to wander back into 
the past. Then I took out my note-book, and wrote as fol- 
lows : — 

" The Alamo, with its crumbling walls, as it stands to-day, is a monu- 
ment to freedom that fires the blood, thrills the hearts, and fills with admira- 
tion the minds, of all who have heard its story. The scene of the most heroic 
defence that has ever been emblazoned on the pages of history ; the spot 
where Bowie, Crockett, and Travis, with their noble band, scorning to sur- 
render, fought until there were none left to tell the tale; the place where 
were consummated deeds of valor that far outshine the feats of arms of the 
noble Romans 'who kept the bridge in the brave days of old,' — what coun- 
try can show such self-sacrifice for the good of others ! what nation has 
been so honored by the prowess and patriotism of her sons ! what people 
have been so immortalized by such glorious deeds ! These pioneers on 
freedom's frontier, and their acts, will they not be embalmed in song and 
story yet to come ? The memory of the heroes of the Alamo shall never 
perish until the granite hills themselves shall crumble into the chaos of 
matter's final end. It will remain a living influence as long as noble deeds 
have power to call forth the admiration of men. No statue or monument is 
needed to perpetuate the memory of the valiant patriots who gave their lives 
a sacrifice for the liberty of unborn generations. Would memorial marble 
outlast the gratitude and hero-worship in the hearts of the sons and daugh- 
ters of Texas, men and women whose heritage of freedom was bought 
with the blood of heroes, — heroes than whom the world has never seen 
greater ? — Defeated not by superior strategy, conquered not by greater 
courage, but annihilated by overwhelming force of numbers. What a com- 
mentary on their chivalric heroism is the legend inscribed on the monument 
constructed of the blood-stained stones of the Alamo! — 'Thermopylae had 
its messenger of defeat : the Alamo had none.' " 

" Do you see where them boxes of soda-crackers are } Well, 
that's where the baptismal font used to be," said the aged gen- 
tleman. 



THE ALAMO. 



289 



If he had not interrupted me, and broken the current of my 
thoughts, I was going on to write a history of the siege of the 
Alamo ; but the aged gentleman was yearning to talk, and it 
would have been cruel not to have allowed him to vent some 
of the ancient lore that I saw he was full of. 

I had read a great many newspaper articles, as well as his- 




THE ALAMO. 

tories and books, that had been written about the battle of the 
Alamo, and was, therefore, a little mixed on the subject, 
althouo-h I reco2:nized some of the historic spots at once. 
Here, to the left, was the spot where Travis fell dead, bayo- 
netted beside the gun that he had used with such deadly effect 
on the advancing Mexican host. Again, in the next room, I 
19 



290. ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

recognized the place where he breathed his last, with a smile 
of triumph on his brow, a bullet in his brain, and a Mexican 
officer of rank impaled on his sword. Moreover, with th"e 
assistance of the aged gentleman, I found the place where 
the porte-cochere had been, and in front of which, when 
the massacre was almost ended. Gen. Castrillo begged Santa 
Anna to spare the life of Travis ; but the tyrant motioned to 
a file of soldiers, and Travis, as he stood defiantly in the 
narrow entrance, with his shattered sword in his hand, re- 
ceived a charge of musketry, and fell pierced with a dozen 
bullets. 

These and many other spots in the neighborhood, on which 
the hero yielded up his life so frequently, I recognized; and I 
was so affected by the sacredness of the place, that I accom- 
panied the old gentleman to the Alamo saloon to — to conceal 
my emotions. 

When we returned, said I, " Colonel, where is the sacred 
spot where Crockett stood in the doorway, and choked the 
passage with the remains of the Mexicans that he brained with 
the butt of his gun } " 

*'Here," said the aged gentleman, leading me into a small 
room with massive walls, **he took his position close to the 
door, and piled dead Mexicans on top of each other, until the 
doorway was full, and he was killed by a bullet that entered 
that little window up there." 

After I had gazed with indescribable feelings of reverential 
awe at the grim, silent walls that must have lent their ears to 
the din of battle, the death-yell of the Texans, and the shouts 
of the victorious Mexicans, I asked the aged gentleman if he 
was positive that this was the identical spot where David 
Crockett died like a tiger at bay ; and he said there was no 
doubt about it. After being convinced of the correctness of 
the old gentleman's historic knowledge, it was with feelings 
too emotional to be described that I begged him to show me 
the other room, where Crockett, emaciated to a skeleton by 
fever, had his arms brought to his bedside, and there perished 
in his bed, after filling the room with deceased Mexican sol- 
diers. 



HEROIC DEEDS. 291 

The aged gentleman was not at all discouraged. He knew 
the exact spot. The building had been torn down, but he 
showed me where it had formerly stood. 

Then I said, '* Colonel, it seems to me that you must be a 
Texas veteran." 

He seemed offended at my remark, and said that he could 
refer me, as to character, to the best citizens of- San An- 
tonio. 

While we were inspecting the various portions of the build- 
ing, the gloom was somewhat increased by the running com- 
ments of my guide. 

" Do you see that angle in the wall, where those old cabbages 
and those boxes of Limberger cheese are piled t Right there 
at least forty Mexicans were killed. Phew, how they smell ! 
Reckon those Limbergers must have soured ! I wonder why 
we can't raise them right here, instead of having to import 
them from the North." 

" What, Mexicans t " 

" No : I mean cabbages. In this room, where so much soap 
and axle-grease is stored, seventeen wounded Texans were shot. 
We have got a soap-factory right here in town : we don't have 
to send to the North for soap. * Thermopylae had her messen- 
ger of defeat : the Alamo had none.' And it's a darned sight 
better article than the Yankees make, anyhow. Right here is 
the most sacred spot in Texas, — and it would bring sixty dol- 
lars a month if it was rented out for a saloon, — around which 
the sacred memories of the past cluster." 

There are a great many different and conflicting accounts of 
the battle ; so many, in fact, that I, who have heard all of them, 
or nearly all, am harassed with doubts about any battle ever 
having been fought there at all. If what the old residents and 
the historians say be true, then there is not a spot within a 
quarter of a mile of the Alamo where Travis did not yield up 
his life rather than submit to the hireling foe, who would have 
shot him, anyhow. There is not a hole or corner in the whole 
building where Crockett, while he was sick in bed, did not 
offer up, with the butt of his rifle, from eleven to seventy-five 
Mexicans, most of them of high rank. Adding up all the 



292 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Mexicans the historians have killed, it aggregates a number 
that is fearful to even think of. I have read every thino- that 
has been invented on the subject, including some very poor 
poetry I made myself ; I have had strangers from the North 
tell me all about it ; and I have come to the conclusion, that, 
after all, I know very little about the battle of the Alamo. 





A SAN ANTONIO SCENE IN THE EIGHTEENTH 



CENTURY. 



HISTORY OF SAN ANTONIO. 



293 



CHAPTER XXII. 





HECKERED and bloody has been the 
history of San Antonio, beginning in 
the year 1691, when the warrior monks 
,..^s^i=55--'^ 'i: r. :. arrived, and began the erection of 
v^'^^V^'-^sl^'^--- churches and the digging of irrigating 
^^■^-'^'-^''Mw^-fi't.- ditches. For thirty years the monks 
^!^^r^--'^ and Indians had the country all to 
~^ themselves. They lived in the beauti- 

— ---^' fill valley of the San Antonio River, 

hundreds of miles away from any form of civilization. The 
monks converted and reduced the Indians. The Indians dug 
ditches, and once in a while reduced an over-zealouS monk. 
Then, in 1730, colonists began to arrive, and settle around the 
missions. The village of San Fernando was founded. It grew 
slowly ; and for eighty years more the monks went on with the 
good work, and the colonists kept store, and traded with the 
monks, soldiers, and Indians. In 18 10 the village had grown 
to be a place of some importance ; and the king of Spain, by 
royal decree, changed its name to San Antonio. 

During the next decade many fierce battles were fought be- 
tween the Royalists and Republicans at San Antonio. The 
city was taken and lost and retaken by both parties. Some- 
times the leaders of the conquered parties would have their 
heads cut off, and stuck on the ends of poles. At other times 
the defeated generals would only have their throats cut, and 
their bodies consumed by fire. These struggles continued at 
intervals until about 1821, when Mexico separated from the 
mother-country. Then the Mexican Government invited immi- 
crration from the United States to Texas. Many immigrants 



294 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



came to San Antonio, which had five thousand inhabitants in 
1825. 

The Mexicans, and the descendants of the ''noblemen of the 
kingdom of Castile," soon began to feel that they were being 
pushed aside by the new arrivals from the United States ; and 
they objected to it. The Anglo-Americans had about four 
times as much energy, and fourteen times as much brains, as 
the natives had. While the warm-haired, freckled-faced pil- 
grims from the United States were not exactly dandies, they 
insulted the sensibilities and shocked the propriety of the Mexi- 
cans by washing their faces and combing their hair several 
times a week. It stirred up bad blood to have these heretic 
\ upstarts putting on clean 

shirts on Sunday. All these 
innovations were foreign, 
and distasteful to the proud 
and haughty Spanish cava- 
liers. The Mexicans were 
very religious, and strict in 
their observance of holi- 
days. They would not work 
on saints' days. The immi- 
grants had no such scruples. 
The Mexicans were in the 
habit of observing the sab- 
bath and the saints' days by bull-fighting, prancing about the 
streets on horseback, and attending services at the cathedral 
and in the cock-pit. There were about two hundred saints' 
days in the year, and the natives observed every one of them. 
The immigrants did not observe the saints' days : hence the 
devout Mexican, on his way to the cock-pit, was inexpressibly 
shocked on seeing the heretic at work in his field, desecrating 
Saint Somebody's day with a hoe or a plough. This confirmed 
the gradually growing impression among the Mexicans, that 
the Americans, like the Indians, needed reducing. If the Mexi- 
cans had not been loaded up to the muzzle with self-conceit, 
and had learned only half as much of history as they had of 
cock-fighting, they would have known that the Saxon races are 




Ci . h'^cJrf/z ——' - — - 



OBSERVING SAINTS' DAYS. 



HISTORY OF SAN ANTONIO. 295 

very apt to reduce those who attempt to tamper with their 
religious liberty. 

There were two kinds of Indians, — those who could be re- 
duced, and those who were not susceptible to Christian influ- 
ences. But there was only one kind of American. He had his 
faults ; but subservience to tyrants was not one of them. 

It may be asked, Why did the Mexican Government invite 
the Americans to settle in Texas .'* In the first place, the result 
of the one hundred and fifty years' attempt of the Spaniards to 
civilize the Indians in Texas had not been successful. The 
only visible signs of their occupation of the country for a cen- 
tury and a half were a few small towns and mission-stations. 
There were no longer any tame Indians to speak of, and the 
grand mission-buildings were almost without worshippers. On 
the other hand, the unreduced Indians had become more nu- 
merous ; and they swarmed about the suburbs of the town to 
such an extent, that it was as much as a man's life was worth 
to go to market in the morning. When a citizen did not come 
home to dinner, the meal was not kept warm for him. It was 
inferred, as a matter of course, that the Indians had killed him. 
There was no protection for a man a quarter of a mile from the 
military plaza. Outside of the actual heart of the city, every 
house had a small fort, to which the owner retired for protection 
— when necessary. It consisted of a large hole in the ground, 
large enough to accommodate the whole family. The top was 
covered with a conical roof of earth and mortar a few feet above 
the ground, while narrow port-holes enabled the besieged to 
sweep the vicinity with their guns. 

The columns of the papers of those early days teem with 
Indian outrages. Scarcely a week passed during which whole 
families were not swept from existence by bands of raiding 
Indians. Such local items as the following are of continual 
recurrence : " We are much indebted to Col. Shepard for 
laying on our table a beautiful Indian arrow, which he has just 
pulled out of his youngest child. Col. Shepard lives on the out- 
skirts of the town, where he is much exposed to Indian raids. 
How long, O Lord, how long shall we have to put up with this 
nonsense } The colonel also tells us that there are two or 



296 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

three more arrows in other members of his family, which are 
almost ready to pull out. Where are the police ? Have we an 
ordinance against Indians thus disturbing the peace and quiet 
of families ? If so, why is it not enforced ? We need, how- 
ever, expect no relief until an alderman comes home some 
day from a beer-saloon bristling with arrows like a porcupine. 
The arrows can be seen at our office by regular subscribers 
when they come up to settle for past arrearages. In the 
midst of life we are in danger of being stuck full of Indian 
arrows." 

So familiar had the inhabitants become with danger, and so 
common an occurrence was it for Indians to depredate on the 
people, that the press could thus jest at what was really a 
serious inconvenience. 

The Mexican population was dwindling away under the con- 
stant Indian attacks : hence the Americans were invited over, 
very much as Hengist and Horsa were invited to England — 
and with about the same result. 

From existing records of the Indians, and of their treatment 
by the Spaniards, the noble red man seems to have been the 
same unreliable savage in the beginning of the century that he 
is to-day, and the Indian policy of the Spanish differed but 
little from that of the government of the United States at the 
present time. The following is translated from an old Spanish 
record bearing date 1 800 : — 

'• Although those lands are very rich and productive, being fertilized by 
the San Antonio and San Pedro Rivers, the waters of these two springs are 
not sufficient for the garrison, town, and missions, being unable to extend 
their settlements on account of the hostility of the Apache Indians. Their 
villages are situated at a distance of twenty leagues from said garrison ; and 
from these places they come out to commit their depredations, not only 
in the garrison of San Antonio de Bexar, but as far as the province of 
Coahuila, as they have excellent horses, fire-arms, and arrows, which they 
manage with the greatest dexterity. The chastisement which they received 
in 1732 by our companies was not sufficient to give them experience. They 
beg for peace whenever they find themselves in danger; but, as soon as they 
consider themselves in safety, they are the first to break all treaties, and 
would commit murders and all kinds of barbarities, caring less for their 
wives and children, whom they very often sacrifice for the acquisition of a 
few horses." 



A PROCLAMATION. 297 

The following literal translations of proclamations made by 
the Governor of Texas in the year 1809, show how the Span- 
iards talked to the Indians, of whom they were afraid, and who 
readily accepted the Spaniards' presents of tobacco and fire- 
water, but would not accept their plan of salvation. 

PROCLAMATION OF THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS TO 
VARIOUS INDIAN TRIBES. 

The Second Big Captain of San Antonio, to the captains and warriors of 
the Tahuayas, Wichita, and A quichi Nations, Greeting: 

Brothers ! Your envoys and their companions have arrived here in 
good health, and my heart felt glad at seeing them. 

Brothers ! Open well your ears, and listen to the words of your 
father, who treats you as his sons. 

Brothers ! When the First Big Captain of this province heard that 
your envoys and their companions were near, he sent out eleven Span- 
ish warriors to give them to eat, and accompany them to town. 

Listen well to my words ! They will tell you how well they have been 
received : it is our way to show our friendship to you. They all went to 
the house of the First Big Captain, who gave them tobacco ; after- 
wards they came to my house, and I gave them to drink because they 
were tired ; and then they went out to rest. 

Brothers ! The First Big Captain loves you as much as I do, and told 
me to go to meet your envoys and their companions, to listen to what 
they had to say. I did so two suns after their arrival, and my heart felt 
good when I listened to their talk. 

Brothers ! The first who talked to me was " Feather in the Ear," the 
son of the Wichita captain : the second was the Tahuayas Achaja (the 
Deaf), in the name of Quiritachequia. The first wanted to know if 
what the Comanche Shojas told you was true ; and the second, if it was 
true that the Spaniards and the French were at war, and why so. 

Brothers ! You will show by your envoys and their companions that I 
have opened my heart to them, as they did theirs to me ; and I said to 
them, "The reception you have met with, the demonstrations of my 
friendship, and the presents you will receive, will show you that Shojas 
has not spoken the truth ; since the First Big Captain and myself did not 
say any such thing, because you are our good and faithful sons." 

Listen well ! As to answer the second question was a proof of our 
confidence, I wanted, first, to know if you were faithful Spaniards in 



298 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

your hearts. Therefore I, your envoys, and their companions, went to 
see the First Big Captain, who had just arrived, and whom they wanted 
to know and talk with. And before him they swore in your names that 
you would always obey the Spanish captains, and listen to no man of 
any other nation without our permission. 

Brothers ! My heart felt very good at that, and I said to them, the 
king of Spain and the Indians, " Our Great Father, seeing that the 
Frenchmen of the big land on the other side of the sea were not good 
nor true friends to his sons the Spaniards, and that they were not grateful 
for his favors, and that they wanted to do harm to the Spaniards, went 
to war against them. He killed many French big captains and warriors, 
and finally made prisoner their emperor, who is the worst of all of them. 
It is so, that we Spaniards punish those who are not good friends, and 
bear in our hearts those who are true friends." 

Brother ! Open your ears ! You see now how the Spaniards trust 
you. If you keep your word to be faithful and obedient, we shall be 
your fathers ; we shall treat you as our sons ; and, if you do what we tell 
you, you shall want nothing. 

The First Captain and myself, as a proof of our word to protect you, 
send to you our marks, which will be a sign for you that any man who 
shows you either of them must be hstened to, and receive of you assist- 
ance and help. You must keep well these marks, and let me know if 
you happen to lose them. 

Your envoys take with them three bundles of tobacco, one for each 
nation. They all received fine presents, and had their bellies filled. I 
think they go away satisfied, as I shall always be, if you remain faithful 
and obedient. And so you shall be happy. 

The Second Spanish Big Chief, 

Manuel de Salcedo. 
San Antonio, April 19, 1809. 

PROCLAMATION OF THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS TO THE 
TAHUAYAS, WICHFIA, AND AOUICHI INDIANS. 

I represent the person of your great father, the king of Spain, and 
your land. I look on you as on my -sons, and I am glad that you trust 
me as you say, and I will treat you as sons. 

You have asked me to send with you some warriors to protect you. 
To which I say, that, having now a great use for my soldiery, I cannot 
send them with you ; but next spring, if you want them, I shall send 
them to visit your land. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW. 299 

You cannot doubt but that I look on you as on my sons, as, like a 
father, I will give you what you want, and you shall soon be happy. 

I will give you powder, clothes, and other things you want for your- 
selves, your sons, and your wives. 

Grant me only one thing that I ask of you : it is, that you close your 
ears to any man who is not a Spaniard, not to listen to any men but our- 
selves. Remain faithful to us, and you shall be happy. 

Do not allow the Englishmen of the other side to pass through your 
land to come among us, and do not allow our men to go among the 

Enerlishmen. 

The Spanish Big Chief, 

Manuel de Salcedo. 

Jan. I, 1810. 

Until 1836 the population of San Antonio de Bexar contin- 
ued to increase. Then came the war between the Texans and 
Mexicans, and the victory of the Texans. From that day to 
this there has been a slow and gradual change, the enterprise 
and civilization of the Texans taking the place of the apathy, 
ignorance, and shiftlessness of the Mexicans. 

The old and the new are brought together in violent contrast 
in San Antonio, — here, the Mexican jacal, with its thatched roof 
and adobe walls ; across the street, the palatial residence of an 
American or German merchant, with its surroundings of flow- 
ers and fountains. Now a narrow and crooked street is in- 
tersected by a broad avenue lined with trees, where we see 
the carriage of the broadcloth-covered American passing the 
ragged Mexican's donkey-cart of a pattern used two hundred 
years ago. Farther on we see a cock-pit on the same block 
with the Methodist church, while we hear the creak of the 
huo-e Mexican carretas mingling with the rattle of ,the railroad- 



cars 



The following is a bond fide list of the names of those to 
whom marriage-licenses werq issued during one week while we 
were in San Antonio. I found the list in the San Antonio 
** Express." 

" The following is the list of marriage-licenses issued the past week by 
Sam S. Smith, Esq., the county clerk : Henry Edwards and Jane Smith ; 
Manuel Cluke and Fomasa Granados ; Stefan Von Mecezhawrki and Bry- 



300 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

jida Farka; R. C. Cummings and Susan V. Emmer; Federrico Zepeda 
and Valeriana Zedio ; Francisco Batron and Monica Bihl ; Ramon Toldra 
and Isabel Martinez; Charles Ackerman and Anna Rickermann ; Otto 
Schroeder and Fannie Seiler." 

The San Antonio River flows through the city. A range of 
hills, with a gradual elevation of two hundred feet, almost sur- 
round the valley in which San Antonio is situated. The city 
is in latitude 29°3o' north, longitude 98°24^ Its altitude above 
the level of the Gulf of Mexico is six hundred and eighty-seven 
feet. Average temperature: spring, 69.90°; summer, 83.50°; 
autumn, 68.90°; and winter, 52.90°. 

San Antonio is now a city of about twenty-two thousand 
inhabitants. Of this number, about six thousand are Mexican, 
and six thousand German. 

Official notices and advertisements are printed in three lan- 
guages. On a bridge over the San Antonio River there is a 
signboard on which appears the following notice : — 

WALK YOUR HORSES OVER THIS BRIDGE, OR YOU WILL BE FINED. 

SCHNELLES REITEN UBER DIESE BRUCKE 1ST VERBOTEN. 

ANDA DESPACIO CON SU CABELLO, O' TEME LA LEY. 

These notices are not by any means literal translations of 
each other. Each shows something of the characteristics of the 
nationality to which it is addressed. The American is told to 
walk his horses, or he zvill be fined. The appeal has a financial 
aspect. 

The German is advised that fast riding ist verboten (is for- 
bidden). It is only necessary to notify the law-abiding German 
that it is forbidden. 

To the Mexican the command is more in the nature of a 
threat : Go slow with your horse, teuie la ley (or fear the 
law). 

Commerce Street, which crosses this bridge, and connects 
the two principal plazas, is the chief thoroughfare of the city, 
and most of the business-houses are on it. The street is quite 
crooked, and very narrow. An ox-team cannot turn on it. 



COMMERCE STREET. 3°! 

When one vehicle passes another, there is hardly room for the 
doer to escape. The sidewalks are three feet wide ; and, when 
the" small man meets the large man, the smaU man steps out 
into the gutter until the large man passes. These sidewalk 
are indescribably rough and uneven.- They are composed ot 
pieces of rock of different sizes, placed at every imagmable 
.Tgle over which a pedestrian can stumble. There :s only one 
uniform thing about the San Antonio sidewalk and that is 
its uniform hardness. There are, however, along this V^a De- 
rosa, quite a number of well-furnished drug-stores, in which the 
pleasure-seeking pedestrian can be carried when he needs splints 
and arnica, or when he wants an ankle-joint adjusted. _ 

The a-ed gentleman before alluded to accompanied the 
doctor an'd me on our first stroll through the city^ Our route 
from the Alamo Plaza was through Commerce Street. Ihe 
a<.ed gentleman could see nothing in San Antonio but what 
wlis superior to everything of the same kind to be seen any- 
where else. If a cloud of dust came along and filled our nos- 
trils, eyes, and lungs, he would call attention to the beautiful 
gulf-breeze that mitigated the heat of summer If we lad 
been ankle-deep in mud, he would have remmded us tha he 
San Antonio soil was very rich alluvial, and six feet m depth. 

"This," said he, tapping with his cane one of the bowlders 
on the pavement, "is hone of your slippery asphalt or Nichol- 
on, that wears out in a year, and has to be repaired every 
month This, sir, is rock, solid rock, native rock , and these 
"dewalks you see here have not been repaired m twenty years. 
They are just as the Mexicans built them. _ 

I Ls about to say, that they looked as if they had been bu^t 
by an earthquake, when I was startled by the noise made by 
some one stumbling, and falling on the pavement. It was 
myself As soon a's I regained my feet, the aged gentleman 
^marked blandly, "You are not accustomed to good, solid 
sidewalks, and probably you" — 

He wai going to say something more ; but he unexpected y 
stumbled over an obstruction of the tertiary formation, and 
went head first into a fruit-shop. After explaining and apolo- 

. Since this chapter was written, some improvements have been made in the sidewalks. 



302 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



gizing to the proprietor, he went on to state, that the street 
was much more picturesque than the straight streets of modern 
cities, where the houses were all uniform in size and architec- 
ture. Then he stopped, and, looking up, was about to point 
out some object of interest on the roof of the house, when a 




"NOT ACCUSTOMED TO GOOD, SOLID SIDEWALKS.' 



negro boy, carrying a tray full of dinner on his head, collided 
with us. The doctor got some soup on his pants, and the aged 
gentleman was not forgotten in the matter of vegetables. The 
doctor inquired, " Why did the founders of the city not build 



the streets straight t " 



THE LEGEND. 



303 



*at is a little out of line," said the aged gentleman; ''but 
originally it was straight. There is an old legend regarding it 
which is very touching. When the Spanish fathers came here 
first, they camped just where Jack Harris's variety theatre is 
now. One of the party, full of holy zeal, started out to begin 
the work of evangelizing the wild Indians, who were camped 
about where the Menger Hotel is. The good father went as 
far as where Commerce-street bridge is now located, searching 




PLANTING ARROWS IN A MISSIONARY. 



for an Indian. His zeal was rewarded : he found one. The 
Indian at the same moment discovered the padre. Before the 
holy father could raise his voice in praise, the Indian raised a 
howl that could have been heard at the head of the river. The 
monk's legs were short, but the speed with which he returned 
to camp would have done credit to an antelope. The Indian 
attempted to overtake him ; and, in his zeal to place himself 
under Christian influences, he planted several arrows in the 
person of the missionary, who, taking a bee-line for camp, sue- 



304 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

ceeded in making his escape. The fast time made by the 
monk was resfarded as a miracle. Commerce Street was laid 
out exactly as the padre ran, and was as straight as a shingle." 

" But how did it come to be so crooked } " asked the doc- 
tor. 

"That shows that you are a stranger, and that you have 
never seen San Antonio in a real muddy time. The old Span- 
iards staked out the lots and building-sites on each side of the 
street : but, before they began to build, a heavy rain fell, and 
the soil became liquid ; consequently the street flopped about 
like an eel in a mud-puddle. After the mud had dried up, and 
they came to examine the stakes, they found the street had 
dried up crooked. As they could not wait for another rain to 
make it pliable, they built along the crooked line, and thus 
made it permanent. They had to abide by the stakes they had 
driven into the ground : hence many of the lots have fourteen 
corners. 

" Have you been tc see our old missions, built in the seven- 
teenth century.^" said the aged gentleman ; and then he went 
on to tell us all about them. We do not remember having met 
a native in San Antonio who did not ask us if we had been to 
see the missions, or who failed to describe their architectural 
beauties with a minuteness of detail that was cruel. 

But to return to the San Antonio streets. The old Span- 
iards have moved away. I don't know where they have moved 
to — but they left the streets behind them. They are regarded 
as such sacred relics that some of them have never been re- 
paired since. Some of these streets have been widened so that 
a modern alderman and a load of hay can pass each other with- 
out lightering. In order to widen the streets, the property of 
private individuals has to be encroached on ; and, so soon as 
that is suggested, property rises as if there were a volcano 
under it. On the same principle it is impossible for a railroad- 
train to run oyer any thing but a pure Durham cow. 

If a foot and a half is taken from a lot, that much land be- 
comes worth as much as, if not more than, the whole is assessed 
at. Under these circumstances the conviction gradually dawns 
on the tax-payer, that either he has been systematically swin- 



CARRYING OFF A HOLE IN THE GROUND. 305 

died by low assessments or else an attempt is being made to 
enrich the property-owner out of the city treasury. 

The San Antonio city council is taking vigorous measures 
to make itself unpopular, and with very flattering prospects of 
success. An ordinance is being introduced to compel mer- 
chants to keep their empty dry-goods boxes off the pavements ; 
which goes to show that the days of feudal despotism are not 
over yet. Not even an inspired pen can describe the condition 
of the San Antonio sidewalks. If a stranger really wants to 
understand how bad those of Commerce Street are, let him 
undertake to walk backwards down a steep pair of stairs in 
the dark, with a cooking-stove in his arms. After he and the 
cooking-stove have reached the bottom, which they will do 
without much exertion on their part, he will be in the same 
frame of mind and body that the stranger is in when he under- 
takes to saunter along a San Antonio sidewalk, except, that, 
when he falls down-stairs, he will probably strike a carpet ; but, 
when he strikes hard-pan on the sidewalk, he rests cosily on sharp- 
cornered pieces of hard sandstone set up edgewise. Otherwise 
the illustration is perfect. 

There is on Commerce Street, nearly opposite the National 
Bank, a hole in the pavement, as it is humorously called, — a hole 
in which, on an average, five persons sprain their ankles daily. 
Being a hole ni the ground, it is not an obstruction in the legal 
sense of the word : consequently it cannot be removed. The 
owner of the property has been notified to take the hole inside 
the store, just the same as if it were a wooden Indian or dry- 
goods box ; but he knows his rights, and leaves it out all night. 
A special ordinance will have to be drawn up to cover that 
hole, or it will remain open all summer. But to return to the 
dry-goods boxes I have just left. The merchants, in the good- 
ness of their hearts, put the dry-goods boxes on the sidewalks 
for the very purpose of obstructing them. As long as the side- 
walks are not blocked up, people will imagine they are intended 
for pedestrianism ; and, whenever they make that mistake, they 
have to be carried endwise into drug-stores. The idea, however, 
of anybody being able to devise an obstruction of dry-goods 
boxes that would be as complete an obstruction as the side- 



306 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

walks themselves, is laughable ; and yet, if the city were to re- 
quire the wealthy property-owners to lay down good pavements, 
they would hold indignation meetings, and suggest mob vio- 
lence. Some few persons who have never made the ascent or 
descent of the San Antonio streets may think the foregoing 
exaggeration. Not so. Those who die of lack of pavement 
facilities appear in the mortuary report as having died of some 
Latin name nobody understands. The matter is thus hushed 
up so as not to deter capitalists from investing in town property. 







THE DUST, — SPANISH PROFANITY, 



307 



CHAPTER XXIII. 







-^ AN ANTONIO is famous for its dust, — not 
only the dust of the Alamo, but common dust. 
In fact, there is a quaint old legend that San 
Antonio owes its existence to dust. When the 
Spanish soldiers, missionaries, and settlers first 
settled in this valley, the friars passed an ordi- 
nance that everybody who used profane lan- 
guage would be fined fifty cents for church 
purposes. It was a dry season ; and, high 
winds prevailing, the air was filled with dust. 
Before two months were over the dust was 
so annoying that the Spaniard and Indian 
converts had cursed together a large cathe- 
dral and four mission-buildings, the ruins ol 
which, like grim sentinels of a bygone age, 
still stand where their walls once rang with 
vesper hymns, mixed up with choice Spanish profanity at the 
accursed dust. One afternoon, when the dust was absolutely 
fearful, old Gen. Ignacio Barterra '' cussed " a forty-foot steeple 
on the old church on the plaza, while his staff swore a stone 
wall around the new cemetery. Those were the ages of faith. 
Nowadays, when a man gets his eyes, nose, and mouth full of 
dust, instead of contributing to church purposes by the inevita- 
ble flow of language, he contributes half a cent to the revenues 
of the State, and listens to the tolling of the bell-punch as he 
passes out of the saloon with a piece of lemon-peel in his mouth. 
We passed a young man who was sitting on a dry-goods box 
with his head tied up, and one arm in a sling. 

"Did a loaded wagon run over you.?" asked a policeman, as 



308 . ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

he stepped out of the saloon-door in front of which the young 
man was sitting. 

" No : we were only celebrating my birthday last night. We 
had a glorious time. You ought to have been there'' 

The policeman merely said, that, judging by the looks of the 
celebrant, the whole force ought to have been there. 

For its length and opportunities the San Antonio River is 
accused of being the crookedest river in the world. From the 
head of the river to the city is a distance of only three miles and 
a half ; and yet, to reach the city, the river has to travel seven 
miles. This disposition to loaf and ramble about in an aimless 
way was noted by the observant Indians, who named it, in 
their musical tongue, Chem-quem-ka-ko, — in English, Old-man- 
coming-home-from-the lodge. The Spaniards thought this the 
name of some heathen god. Wishing to change it, and being 
desirous of conciliating St. Anthony of Padua, — thus killing 
two early birds with one worm, ^ they rebaptized Old-man- 
coming-home-from-the-lodge, and called it San Antonio. From 
this the simple-minded Indians imagined St. Anthony to be 
a most jovial saint. How much influence this had on San An- 
tonio and its inhabitants, it is impossible to say. But when, in 
these modern times, you smell and see about fifteen saloons on 
one block in the business centre of the city, and when you are 
told that several of the aldermen travel a mile and a half in 
getting to their homes, only one hundred and fifty yards distant, 
you cannot shake off the impression, that the original name, 
Chem-quem-ka-ko, would be more in harmony with the surround- 
ings, and that the unities would be better preserved, than by 
perpetrating a huge joke on a distressingly steady saint like 
Anthony. r 

The San Antonio River has selected a lovely spot on the 
Brackenridge place, at which it bursts forth unexpectedly in the 
shape of one of the most beautiful springs to be found in Texas. 
From San Antonio this spring could be reached conveniently 
in half an hour if it were not that the owner has erected a 
stone wall around the place, which is hardly low enough for 
strangers to climb over, and be chased out by the irate Irish- 
man kept on the premises for that purpose. 



THE ABBE DOMENECH. 309 

The spring is circular in shape, about six feet in diameter, 
and not less than fifteen feet deep. The water that bubbles up 
is so wondrous clear, that the movements of even the smallest 
fish can be discerned. No attempt to describe the beauty of 
the spring can succeed. Real poets, with long hair and a wild 
glare about their expressive nostrils, have tried it ; but I shall 
not distress the reader by reproducing any of their efforts. 

The San Antonio River, even as late as twenty-five years 
ago, was a clear, rapid brook, gliding onward to the sea to the 
melodious cadence of the mocking-bird's song, etc. Now it 
looks as if it had just made its escape from a laundry. The 
temperature of the water is the same, winter and summer. It is 
not as good for drinking-purposes as it used to be. The habit 
of depositing cats, and other luxuries that the citizens have 
no further use for, in the stream, coupled with the inability 
of the slow current to transport them outside of the city limits 
until they have become infirm with age, has done much to make 
cistern-water popular. According to the most reliable tradi- 
tion, the principal use the Spaniards and Mexicans had for the 
river, after using it to irrigate the land, was to bathe in it, — a 
pious ceremony, that has fallen into neglect as far as their de- 
scendants are concerned. It was the custom for all ages and 
sexes to bathe promiscuously together. In fact, when the 
Americans began to settle in the Alamo City, and put up 
canvas-covered bath-houses, the astonished natives could not 
understand what they were for. In a *' Personal Narrative," 
written by the abbe Moses Domenech (a French priest who 
visited Texas in 1845), when describing San Antonio, the modest 
abbe says, — 

" Close to the house was a stream of clear water, where the washing busi- 
ness of the town was done, and in which the women bathed publicly. My 
window was in view of all their gambolings. I was therefore obliged to 
keep it closed during the day." 



Moralizing on the change in the times and — and priests 
since the days when Father Moses Domenech closed his window, 
I am forced to exclaim, in the classic language of the ancients, 
" O tempora ! O mores ! O Moses ! " 



3IO ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

At the present time both banks of the river are, for miles, 
studded with bath-houses floating on empty whiskey-barrels. 
Almost everybody, except Mexicans, bathes ; and, during the 
heated term, a bare-headed clerk in his shirt-sleeves, darting 
across Commerce Street with a towel and a piece of soap under 
his arm, is a permanent feature of the landscape. 

The river was formerly utilized for irrigating purposes, and 
helped the seasons out in their efforts to make a crop. By 
promising the Indians a happy future beyond the sunset-glow, 
and creating a yearning for it by making it hot for them on this 
side of the valley of the shadow, the Spanish monks induced 
them to excavate the long miles of irrigating ditches that still 
exist, and that may be found in all parts of the city and out in 
the suburbs, producing the only genuine cases of typhoid-fever 
of which the city can boast. 

There is another stream, the San Pedro. It runs through 
the northern part of the city, as nearly parallel to the San 
Antonio River as the windings of the two streams will permit. 

The rivers of San Antonio are given to suddeii rises and 
falls, and on two occasions their waters met on the main plaza. 
In 1813 a tremendous cloud burst just above the city; and the 
volume of water that fell was so great, that the two streams 
rose until their waters commingled. The second occasion on 
which the waters of the two streams met was 1872, when two 
milk-wagons, being driven rapidly across the plaza, collided with 
disastrous force, the milk-cans bursting, and the milk mingling 
in one common flood on the plaza. One of those vehicles was 
from the San Pedro side of the town, and the other was from 
the farm of a German who lived on the San Antonio River, 
below town. Thus, more than half a century after the great 
overflow, the waters of the two streams commingled a second 
time. 

The Mexican element is a large feature in the population of 
Western Texas. 

Outside of the cities and towns, the Mexicans serve as shep- 
herds, teamsters, and cattle-herders. Very few cultivate the 
soil. The majority of those in San Antonio live by hauling 
wood, prairie-hay, bones, and other country-produce, into town. 



MEXICAN POLITENESS, 



311 



The remainder eke out a miserable existence by pawning and 
redeeming their superfluous wearing-apparel. A Mexican may 
be very poor ; he may be in more indigent circumstances than 
Job's turkey; he may be steeped in such abject poverty, that, 
compared to him, a church-mouse will seem to be rolling in 
affluence ; and he may be so destitute, that he is not able to 
keep more than six dogs, — but, even then, he can draw upon 
his pawnbroker for the value of a ticket that will admit him to 
the arena where chicken-disputes occur on Sunday. The Mexi- 
cans spend freely what little they have : they seldom accumu- 




III!* - ! ' it i ■ i f "i ■ ' ( u— 1 V-it. * 



MEETING OF THE WATERS. 

late much worldly goods; and they cannot keep any thing — 
not even the sabbath day. 

The Mexicans are remarkable for their politeness, and suavity 
of manners. Before reaching San Antonio we called at the 
rancho of Don Ignacio Gonzales to ask for directions as to 
the way. Don Ignacio welcomed us at the door, told the 
doctor, who pretended to speak Spanish, that he was his ser- 
vant, and invited us into the house. '' Estoy enteramente a su 
disposicion" ("I am entirely at your disposal"). We had a 
very pleasant talk, and many very complimentary things were 



312 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



said on both sides. Among other things, Don Ignacio said, 
'' Esta V en su casa, y puede mandar " (" You are in your own 
house, and can command "). 

The doctor noticed a fine pair of spurs, and expressed his 
admiration of them. " Tomele V senor ; es suyo " {" Take it, 
sir; it is yours"), said the old gentleman. 

The doctor thanked him in the most extravagant terms that 




TOMELE V SENOR; ES SUYO 



a mixture of Spanish and English would allow, and put the 
spurs in his pocket. We were then directed as to the route, 
after many assurances from Senor Gonzales that he and his 
sons and daughters, his man-servants and his maid-servants, 
were our most devoted servants henceforth and forever. We 
said " Adios," and started to leave. The hospitable and gener- 
ous old ranchero bowed us to the door, assuring us, that, while 
he continued to inhabit this terrestrial ball, he would daily pray 



A MEXICAN JACAL, 313 

that the choicest blessings of Heaven might follow us; and 
then the old fraud intimated, in quite a business-like tone, that, 
as the doctor was his dearest friend, two dollars was all that he 
would charge for the spurs that he had given him. 

In my intercourse with the Mexicans, I learned that the 
courteous and high-sounding phrases are but polite expressions, 
meaning nothing; and that although they may say ''Tomele V 
senor, es suyo," when you admire any of their possessions, 
you had better not take them at their word, unless you have 
money in you pocket to pay for the article. If you inquire of 
a Mexican as to any matter regarding which he is ignorant, or 
indisposed to talk, the invariable answer, accompanied by a lazy 
shrug of the shoulders, is, " Quien sabe .? " (" Who knows } ") 
Many of the Mexicans residing in Texas can speak English ; 
but they often deny that they can. ''No entiendo " (''I do 
not understand ") is frequently heard by the stranger who tries 
to induce the Aztec to speak English. 

The majority of Mexicans live in miserable huts called 
"jacals." These dens consist of one room about twelve feet 
square. The walls are made of upright posts, the interstices 
being filled with mud. There is no attempt at ornamentation. 
The mud is just plastered on, the capacious hand of the Mexi- 
can serving as a trowel. The roof is made of cane, thatched 
with tule, a kind of rush. The more pretentious edifices 
have tin roofs, constructed out of old oyster-cans. This kind 
of roof is water-tight (when it does not rain), and makes an 
excellent breeding-place for scorpions and centipedes. Another 
advantage of the thatched roof is, that it takes fire readily, and 
thus, by obliging the owner to build another roof, stimulates 
him to habits of industry. There is a doorless opening in the 
side of the jacal, used for the entrance and exit of the inhabit- 
ants. There is another opening that serves in lieu of a win- 
dow, and is used as a private entrance by the goats and dogs. 
The floor is of mud, pounded hard. The American national 
pastime of taking the carpets out to the back-yard, and beating 
the dust out of them, is unknown in Western Texas. 

There being only one room in a jacal, it is much more con- 
venient than the arrangement of Buckingham Palace, because 



314 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



in the jacal you are not compelled to leave the dining-room, and 
go away off by yourself to another room, when you want to put 
on a clean shirt. The grounds around the jacal are, however, 
adorned with statuary, particularly in summer, whenever the 
older members of the family sit around in the shade, clothed 
only in their native modesty and one other garment. 

The census of Mexicans, of all ages and sexes, who live, 
move, and consume beans, in one of these habitations, has never 
been taken ; but the number of male Mexicans old enough to 
vote, that can be enticed out of one of them with a bottle of 




A MEXICAN JACAL. 



whiskey on election-day, is large enough to justify putting the 
average at about thirty. 

Jacals of this description are about the only dwellings, out- 
side of the towns, that can be found from the mouth of the Rio 
Grande to El Paso, — fourteen hundred miles up the river. 

Leaven bread of any kind is not used by the Mexicans. 
They have a substitute for the indigestible boarding-house bis- 
cuit of the American : they call it toTtilla, 

The tortilla is made of corn. The corn is first soaked in 
lye until it is soft ; then it is ground into a paste on a rough, 
flat rock, called a inetate, a smaller rock being used as a 



THE TORTILLA. — THE TAMALE. 315 

pestle. The soaking of the corn, the grinding of it, and its 
final baking on a piece of sheet-iron, are done by the women. 
When the real hard work of chewing and swallowing it has to 
be accomplished, the men bear most of the heat and burden of 
the day. 

When warm, the tortilla can be eaten without letting out the 
contract to a deputy. The soles of an old pair of brogans 
would be tender and juicy compared with a cold to7'tilla. 

When the Mexican cannot get fresh beef, he lives on dried 
beef (but he usually has the fresh article when there is any in 
the country). He first hunts up a "beef." Any beef will do, 
provided he does not own it himself. The animal is executed ; 
and the flesh, having been cut up into strips and slabs, is salted, 
and hung out on the fence, like a week's washing. When the 
beef has been thoroughly cured, it becomes so tough that it is 
a fit accompaniment to the tortilla. Thanks to their Indian 
descent, and their abstinence in the matter of hot soup and ice- 
water, the Mexicans have the best teeth in the world. Were 
it not for the excellence of their teeth, the Mexicans would 
starve to death on such food as they have. 

The Mexican laughs and grows fat over another dish, which 
may be called Mexican hash. Like our American hash, the 
ingredients cannot even be accurately guessed at. It requires 
a great deal of confidence to really enjoy any kind of hash, 
but Mexican hash is particularly exacting as to the amount of 
faith necessary to a comfortable enjoyment of it. 

The tamale is even more mysterious than the hash, for it is 
concealed in a greased corn-shuck. The materials that can be 
detected in it with the naked palate are pepper, corn-meal, some 
kind of meat, and — pepper. This mixture is seasoned with 
pepper. It is believed that there is a connecting-Knk between 
the plump, fat Pelon dogs that swarm about every jacal, and 
the tamales. Mexicans of all ages, sexes, and previous condi- 
tions are equally fond of both. There is a wild legend among 
the older inhabitants of San Antonio, that tells how one of their 
number, who was an enthusiast on the subject of tamales^ — 
claiming for that article of food medical properties, — ^^one day 
discovered in one of those herbs a tuft of hair that had evi- 



i6 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



dently adorned the head of the Pelon or Barbary dog. This 
discovery established the fact that tamales really do have medi- 
cinal qualities, — somewhat in the nature of an emetic; and 
it effected a perfect cure : the enthusiast's craving for tamales 
was gone forever. 

The mode of preparing the tamale is peculiar. A handful of 
hash is wrapped up in a corn-shuck, and boiled in lard or grease. 
The corn-shuck is not eaten with th.Q. tamale; although nothing 
can be brought up against the shuck, except that it is found in 
bad company, associating with the other ingredients. 

The bean called frijoles is the national berry of the Mexi- 
cans. Do not pronounce it ''freejowls," however, but "free- 
holies," if you want a Mexican to understand you. There is 
one thing about the bean that the Mexican dislikes very much. 
If he requires fresh meat, he can go out on the prairie, and 
shoot a yearling ; if he needs a pony, he can go out and rope 
one :" but, when he wants beans, he has to chastise the earth 
with a hoe, — an ignoble undertaking, that no true hidalgo 
should ever be caught at. 



//// 




f>,,,,, , ^^ , 



CULTIVATING REVOLUTIONS. 



Z^l 



CHAPTER XXIV. 




TEALING, and cultivating revo- 
lutions, are the pastimes of the 
Mexican aristocracy, and have al- 
ways been so ; while tilling the 
soil is reserved for the common 
herd. The Mexican has enough 
Spanish blood left in him to be constitutionally opposed to any 
more severe labor than cavorting over the prairie like the Arab. 
Beans are to the Mexican soldiers what the bagpipes are to 
the Scotch Highlanders : they fill them with elan. As soon 
as one party of revolutionists in Mexico cuts off the beans of 
the other party, an unconditional surrender follows. 

The bean is quite small and black, but it has a fine flavor. 
It is often spoken of as being "unhealthy for foreigners ;" and 
it is generally understood that there was a time when it was 
not safe for Americans to tamper with it, a single bean having 
been known to cause sudden death. All rumors of this kind 
are based on something tangible, even if that something should 
be a lie ; and so it is with the assertion that the Mexicans' 
black bean is unhealthy. 

It frequently happened, during the Texas revolution, that 
Americans were taken prisoners by the Mexicans. In many 
instances these prisoners were massacred on the spot, as at the 
Alamo and Goliad ; but afterwards a great many were taken to 
Mexico. Whenever the Mexicans in their own country heard 
of the Texans defeating the Mexicans in Texas, they would 
take out some Texan prisoners, and shoot them, to re-establish 



3l8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

the national courage. They preferred shooting Texans who had 
no arms, — probably because it was safer, and saved travelling- 
expenses. In selecting the prisoners to be shot, they used 
beans. For every ten prisoners they put nine white beans and 
one black bean in a hat, and then passed around the hat, the 
result of which was death to the man who selected the black 
bean. 

Americans can now eat frijoles without the slightest risk. 
The idea that they are dangerous is founded upon the facts 
above stated. 

The average Mexican has scruples about engaging in enter- 
prises that require any thing savoring of physical exercise. He 
is very effeminate, except when somebody is after him on horse- 
back, or when he is eating his meals, in both of which emer- 
gencies he develops surprising vigor ; but otherwise he prefers 
his do Ice far niente, with which every family is amply provided. 
He has none of the aggressiveness of the old Spaniard. They 
keep on calling him a Spaniard and an hidalgo ; which reminds 
me of the Cuban coin that is now worth only fifteen cents, but 
is still called a dollar. 

The Texas Mexicans are very lazy. They are, however, 
cheerful and contented, bearing patiently the proud man's 
contumely, while they humbly climb over his back-fence, and 
steal his chickens at night. 

" Are the Mexicans a good-natured people .-* " asked an 
American of one who had lived among them. 

"Very good natured," was the reply : ''they will take almost 
any kind of treatment without grumbling. They will even 
take the small-pox from each other without making any fuss 
about it." 

Some have been so uncharitable as to contend that the Mexi- 
cans on the Rio Grande have for generations been so accus- 
tomed to taking every thing, that now they take the small-pox 
from mere force of habit. 

About the only two institutions that can be relied on in 
Mexico are revolutions and small-pox : otherwise the country is 
healthy. Owing to its very fine climate, Mexico would be dis- 
tressingly over-populated, were it not for these two modes o '^ 



SMALL-POX, 319 

keeping down the population. Either is liable to break out at 
any time. Vaccination is not popular. But time will change all 
this. Revolutions and small-pox will both be suppressed as 
Mexico becomes modernized. The citizens who are liable to 
small-pox will be vaccinated by the doctors, and those who are 
in danger of breaking out in a revolutionary sense will be vac- 
cinated with guns by the soldiers. President Diaz has several 
times, by this means, prevented the epidemic from spreading. 
At present, however, the small-pox has it all its own way. The 
Mexicans regard it as any other disease, and cannot understand 
the alarm and terror of the Americans, who are accustomed to 
die of other diseases. 

When an American takes the small-pox, he is arrested, and 
locked up in a pest-house. If he were to be seen on the 
streets, his best friends would refuse to drink with him, and the 
Board of Health would sit on him. Those who do not leave* 
the neighborhood where a case of small-pox is located, spend 
most of their time in getting vaccinated, and in examining each 
other's arms to see if it has "taken." 

The following is a San Antonio incident, and is positively 
true : — 

The accused was a Mexican who had been drunk and dis- 
orderly. His very appearance was suggestive of small-pox. 
As soon as the recorder took his seat, he riveted his eyes on 
the prisoner, and asked, — 

" What is the name of that villanous-looking outcast on the 
mourners' bench V 

"His name," said the county attorney, "is Don Jose Maria 
de Valgeme Dios tres Palacios." 

"I dismiss the case against him." 

"But, your honor, the man is guilty." 

" Maybe ; but there are mitigating circumstances." 

" What are those circumstances } " 

Recorder (aside). — "I've not yet been vaccinated." 

The National Board of Health sent a man to San Antonio to 
find out how small-pox patients were treated. He found that 
the patients were treated with such profound respect by the 
white population, that, when one of them walked down Com- 



320 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



merce Street, he had the middle of the street and both sidewalks 
all to himself. He was never jostled or run over by the mob. 

In Mexico it is entirely different : they regard a person who 
has not had the small-pox as a suspicious character. In certain 
parts of Mexico everybody is more or less marked with the 
small-pox. The people look with awe and pity on a man who 
is so unfortunate as to lack the beautifying evidences of that 
popular disease. The Mexican treats the small-pox with indif- 
ference — when he treats it at all. If a member of the family 




TREATED WITH RESPECT. 



is down with the disease, the entire family would feel aggrieved 
if the neighbors did not call in at least once or twice a day to 
see how the small-pox was coming on. When there is small- 
pox in town, and the townspeople do not notify those out in 
the country, so that they can come in and enjoy themselves, 
too, it engenders bad feelings. In fact, the Mexicans never 
seem to be quite sociable until there are three or four deaths a 
day in the neighborhood. They always call around to look at 
the remains, and compare the number of spots with the number 
on some other remains. If the corpse is very much disfigured, 
the grief of the relatives is mitigated. 



WHISTLING TO THEIR CORPSE. 32 1 

Several attempts have been made to popularize vaccination, 
but in vain. It is dangerous for a doctor to make the sugges- 
tion. The Mexicans feel as if it would deprive them of some 
vested right bequeathed by their forefathers. The fact that 
about two-thirds of those who take the small-pox die, is no 
drawback. To the Mexican the great charm about the disease 
is the almost inevitable funeral, which is as cheerful as an Irish 

wake. 

A gentleman from San Antonio happened to be in Laredo 
during a small-pox epidemic. Out of curiosity he attended a 
funeral. 

A Mexican had died in the neighboring house ; and the ser- 
vice of the local band, consisting of a fiddle, a drum, a harp, 
and one or two other musical instruments, had been engaged 
to render the ceremonies unusually impressive. It was the 
custom to play two tunes — a lively waltz and some other senti- 
mental piece — at the house, and two more pieces at the grave. 
The corpse was laid out in the room ; and the musicians began 
to play '' The Blue Danube," or a dirge that sounded very much 
like it ; and all were enjoying themselves hugely, and saying 
that it was the nicest funeral of the season, when the chief of 
the musicians made a signal, and they all stopped playing in 
the middle of the tune. Everybody was dumfounded, and 
asked what had happened to thus mar the solemnity of the 
occasion. The chief musician promptly explained. He had 
been hired to play for one corpse ; and, behold ! there were two. 
It seemed that a child in the neighborhood had died ; and the 
parents being too poor to hire the band, and knowing that 
there was going to be music at the other funeral anyhow, had 
brought their dead infant, and put it alongside of the corpse in 
whose honor the musical entertainment was gotten up, and 
without consulting the chief musician. He told the grief- 
stricken survivors that he would not let them ring in a whole 
morgue on him in that way : they might whistle to their corpse 
if they wanted to, for not another jig would he play. The pall- 
bearers reasoned with him. They pointed out the smallness of 
the corpse, and how it cost no more exertion to fiddle for one 
corpse than it did for a whole graveyard. Would he not, at 
21 



32 2 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

least, make special rates ? But he refused : he wanted to be 
paid for two whole corpses. Things began to look gloomy, 
when the American proposed to pay, and did pay, the extra 
dollar and a quarter demanded. The bereaved parents wept 
tears of joy. The fiddler tuned up, and played a merry rounde- 
lay, while the professor at the drum banged away with such 
vigor as to start every echo and donkey in the neighborhood. 

Talking about donkeys, there is a very pretentious young 
man in San Antonio, named Humboldt Wilson, who recently 
took rooms and board with a family named Smithers. Young 
Smithers, after the manner of San Antonio boys, rides about 
on a little Mexican donkey. A short time ago Wilson was 
standing at the door of the post-office, talking to some of his 
acquaintances, when young Smithers rode past on his donkey. 

" How long have the Smithers been keeping an ass } " said 
some one. 

/' They've had one about the place ever since I have been 
there," replied young Wilson. [Rude laughter by the audi- 
ence.] 

It is very difficult to distinguish one Mexican from another. 
They all look as if they had been cast in the same mould, — 
a mould very much out of repair. 

There was a case of horse-stealing tried in the district court 
in San Antonio, in early days, that was very peculiar. There 
was not very much style about trying cases then, and particu- 
larly horse-stealing cases. Where a Mexican was accused of 
stealing a horse, pretty much all that was necessary was to 
say, ** Gentlemen of the jury, there's your Mexican ! " and they 
would cry out, " Guilty of murder in the first degree," without 
leaving their seats. Maybe it was not quite so ceremonious, 
but there was not much time wasted in consigning him to the 
penitentiary. 

One day a Mexican named Jose Maria Somethingorother 
was brought into court to be tried for undue recklessness in 
the transfer of live-stock. The Court had appointed a leading 
lawyer to defend the Mexican, he being without funds to em- 
ploy one ; but the lawyer had been prevented by more impor- 
tant business from consulting with his Mexican client. In 



ON THE JURY THAT TRIED HIS OWN CASE. 323 

fact, he never saw his client until the deputy-sheriff brought 
him into court, and dumped him down into a chair alongside 
of his attorney. Now, the deputy-sheriff had been lately ap- 
pointed, and did not know one Mexican from another ; and as 
the venue had run short, and the jury-box had to be filled, he 
picked up all the loafers in the court-room, and actually took 
the prisoner himself, and put him in the jury-box to try his 
own case. The prisoner was not familiar with the ways of the 
Court, so he did not say any thing ; and, as another Mexican 
strolled in and took the vacant seat of the prisoner, his counsel 
was none the wiser, particularly as he himself had been out in 
the mean time, and had taken several drinks. The jury was 
impanelled and sworn, among them, of course, the prisoner, 
who lifted up his hand with the rest. 

The prisoner's attorney now turned to his client, and, not 
knowing Spanish, asked him in English if he really stole the 
horse, as charged in the indictment. The Mexican understood 
not a word ; and, as sometimes happens when Mexicans -are 
asked questions they do not understand, the answer was, " Si, 
Senor ! " (" Yes, sir ! "), whereupon the lawyer got up and told the 
Court that his unfortunate client pleaded guilty, but that he, 
the lawyer, would like to address a few words to the jury. 
The district-attorney not objecting, the lawyer made the 
greatest effort of his life. He proved that his client was 
descended from a noble Castilian family that had shed their 
blood like water in holding this country against the Indians, 
how bad company had ruined him, how his family was in dis- 
tress, and much more of the same kind of eloquence, until all 
the jury were more or less affected — except the prisoner in 
the jury-box, who being a Mexican, and not understanding Eng- 
lish, was not much moved. It was not his funeral. The jury 
brought in a verdict of guilty, and assessed the penalty at five 
years' imprisonment. The jurymen, among them the real cul- 
prit, were dismissed, while the sheriff put handcuffs on the 
innocent man in the chair, and led him off to jail. No doubt 
he had been guilty of some rascality, for he went along without 
murmuring. The upshot of it was, that the guilty juryman 
got wind of it, and made his escape. In the mean time the 



324 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

friends of the missing Mexican hunted the whole town over 
for him, but in vain. At last he was discovered in jail, with 
hobbles on. As he owned several carts and oxen, and was a 
man of wealth and influence among the Mexicans, a lawyer 
got him out on a writ of habeas corpus. On the examination 
all these facts came out, and the lawyer who had defended the 
Mexican had a great deal of fun poked at him. Judge Thomas 
J. Devine, before whom the Mexican was brought on writ of 
habeas corpiis, and Judge John H. Duncan, city attorney of 
Houston, will cheerfully substantiate the facts contained in the 
foregoing. 

A peculiar feature of San Antonio is the ditches which cross 
the city in different directions. They are about three feet deep, 
three feet wide, and filled with running water of an uncertain 
color. The aged gentleman walked out with me to show me 
the Alazan ditch. 

" Did you," said I, quoting from Mrs. Spofford's sketch of 
San Antonio, in '' Harper's Magazine " — " did you ever see 
the water in these ditches glisten and sparkle like diamonds in 
the merry sunlight t " 

Said he, " Which } " 

I quoted the statistics from '' Harper's " to him again. 

" No, not since I quit drinking ; but I remember that was 
the way it used to look — particularly on Fourth of July and 
Christmas." 

" Are these ditches very useful now } There must be some 
people who are benefited, or the ditches would be filled up." 

'* Yes — the doctors. The ditches are mighty useful in fur- 
nishing the community with fever. They are not only useful 
to people living here, but to strangers, who don't know where 
they are after dark until they fall into one of them. 

''You see," continued the aged gentleman, "when the Span- 
iards came here, the climate was so dry that they didn't raise 
any thing — except a disturbance with the Indians. The first 
thing they did to encourage the weather was to get up proces- 
sions, and hang pictures of saints up in the trees ; but that 
didn't do anybody any good, except, probably, the priests. 
When they found that processions were of no avail in chan- 



THE IRRIGATING-DITCHES. 



325 



ging the climate, they hired a priest to have a vision, and he had 
one that very night. St. Anthony appeared to him, and beck- 
oned him to follow. The priest followed ; and, in an incredibly 
short space of time, the saint and the priest stood at the head 
of the river. 

" ' Now,' said St. Anthony, speaking for the first time since 
he appeared to the priest, * do you see the head of the river } ' 

" The priest nodded assent. 

" ' Well, do you know what I think ought to be done to it .'' ' 

*' The priest shook his head, and looked his most ignorant 
look. 

*' * It is worthless as it is,' said St. Anthony. 'It does nobody 
any good ; it is an unprofitable servant ; and I think it ought 
to be dammed.' 

**The priest gazed with awe at his companion. Could it be 
Satan, disguised as St. An- 
thony, who had brought 
him up here to make sport 
of him ! 

'' ' I mean,' said St. An- 
thony, 'that it ought to be 
dammed, so as to raise the 
water high enough to irri- 
gate the valley. Let me 
speak to you privately.' 

" Then the saint took 
the priest aside, and ex- 
plained how easy it would 
be for the priest to get in 
with some capitalist, and 
buy up the land lying along the route of the proposed irri- 
gating-ditches for a mere song. ' Why,' continued the saint 
in an earnest tone, * you can also buy the city council by giving 
each alderman a few lots ; and they will run the ditches right 
through your real estate, and it will go up five hundred per cent. 
I tell you there is something in it if judiciously managed.' 

'' * How much interest in this business will you expect } ' 
inquired the priest, who now felt assured that Anthony was 




ST. ANTriONY AND THE PRIEST. 



326 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

not the Devil, but merely a poor saint, without capital, desirous 
of making an honest living. 

''St. Anthony smiled, as he said, 'You forget I am not of 
this world, and am not moved or influenced by its vain and 
mercenary desires. But I'll tell you what I want you to do for 
me. You see, where I live they are disposed to look down 
on me. All the other saints who have any rank and position 
have some town or river named after them. There is St. Louis. 
You ought to hear him brag about the town he claims to be 
the patron of. And then St. Peter, he claims St. Petersburg. 
And St. Lawrence, he is always talking about his river. They 
sort of hold up their heads, and fold their wings, as if they 
owned forty acres and a mule ; and I'm getting tired of it. 
Now, I want you to name this town and river after me. Some 
day your town will be the largest city in Texas, and the day will 
come when I won't feel like taking my hat off to any of them.' 

" The priest promised to see to it, and the saint disappeared 
as suddenly as he had appeared." 

I ventured to suggest to the aged gentleman, that his version 
of the origin of the name did not agree with history. 

'* History be durned ! " said he. " It's not history, it's truth, 
I've been telling you." 

Stranger honors than having San Antonio named for him 
were actually heaped on St. Anthony a few years later. The 
Lisbon " Rivista " not long ago published an old record found 
in the archives at Rio Janeiro. It seems that King John VI. 
of Portugal, being regent in the year 1814, and being either 
grateful for some saintly favor or anxious to secure the in- 
fluence of St. Anthony, issued a decree, in which, after stating 
what a noble saint St. Anthony was, and how much the Portu- 
guese people were indebted to him, he continued, — 

" In consequence, we have resolved to promote, to the grade of lieu- 
tenant-colonel of the infantry, the said St. Anthony, with the pay attached 
to the rank thereof; which will be paid by our marechal-de-camp, Ricardo 
Xavier Calval de Canha, provisionally charged with the command of our 
troops at the capital. Let our will be executed. In faith of which, we sign 
the present decree with our royal hand. 

" Given in our capital, Aug. 31, 1814." 



A MILITARY SAINT. 32? 

And so it is affirmed that some one has drawn St. Anthony's 
pay ever since, for the name is still on the pay-roll. 

We can now imagine Lieut.-Col. St. Anthony looking down 
on mere civilians, like the patron saints of St. Louis, St. 
Thomas, and St. Petersburg. 

As part of my business in San Antonio was to accumulate 
all the truth I could, I asked the aged gentleman if he knew 
who dug the ditches. 

''The Indians dug them. The priests told them that there 
was no opening in heaven for them unless they kept on dig- 
ging ; and, as the Indians believed them, they used to fight for 
the^privilege of excavating those ditches. Now, did you ever 
hear of such foolishness > If these Indians had been civilized 
and educated, they would have known that the proper way to 
get a title to a heavenly mansion was to build a church, raise 
corns on their backs with a hair shirt, disappoint their stomachs 
on Fridays, and persecute everybody who did not believe in their 
religious doctrines. But they were ignorant savages, and did 
not know any better than to believe that there was merit in 
digging ditches. They didn't have intelligence to think for 
themselves : even if they had, I reckon they would have been 
lazy enough to let the priests think for them, and then blindly 
follow their instructions." 

The aged gentleman would have started a theological argu- 
ment at this point if I had not been called away to dinner. 

Immense quantities of fruit and vegetables are raised in 
the gardens irrigated by the water from the ditches. Wh:^ the 
Nile is to the Egyptian, and the Ganges to the Hindoo, the 
ditches are to the San-Antonians. 

I have probably said enough about these ditches, but I was 
compelled to notice them continually while I was in San Anto- 
nio. When they were not obtruding themselves into notice, I 
was obtruding myself into them. 



328 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Si'^ 






M^'^^ '# (^k^ J-<(i 



:,^j2ji%.. 



c— Li- J 




O say that the ditches are filthy 
is to use language as feeble as 
Watts's hymns for infant minds. 
Every spring they have to be 
cleaned out. If they were not, the 
people would have no place to de- 
posit those things which the city 
ordinance requires shall be carted 
out of town. Whenever the people 
begin to buy quinine, and to drag 
themselves around with the agility 
,. ,'' ,.-^'' of a wet fly crawling up a pane of 

glass on a cold day, then you may 
know the ditches are being cleared of their unhealthy sediment. 
But what should be done with the San Antonio ditches } I 
never heard but one man make a practical suggestion on the 
subject. His ideas were so original, that I give them for what 
thc_y are worth. I don't know how much that is, but I give 
them, any"how. Said he, "You can use these ditches to bury 
people in. Use them for a cemetery. It will save grave-dig- 
ging. Just plant your leading citizens all the way along up to 
the head of the river for three or four miles. Taking the 
length of the ditches, you would have forty-five miles of un- 
rivalled cemetery privilege. No other city in the world would 
have a graveyard forty-five miles long. It would be a great 
inducement to invalids to visit the city. How monotonous it 
is to always be riding to the same cemetery. If my plan were 
adopted, you might attend a funeral in the morning on the 
upper Labor ditch, on the west side of the town, and in the 



A PRE-ADAMITE REPTILE. 329 

afternoon you might have a picturesque ride up the old Alamo 
ditch, on the east side. Instead of buying a cemetery lot 
twenty-four feet by twenty-six, families could purchase a hun- 
dred and seventy-five yards of graveyard with meanders. In a 
few years, say, a couple of thousand, after all these ditches had 
been utilized in this way, and everybody had forgotten about 
it, some geologist would discover bones, extending in a con- 
tinuous line from the head of the river, three miles above town, 
to four miles below, and would publish to the world that he 
had discovered the remains of a pre-Adamite reptile seven 
miles long, and knock Darwin higher than a kite — all of which 
would be a great thing for San Antonio." 

In countries where there is any live public spirit, the grave- 
yard is one of the most interesting local institutions. To wan- 
der through the quiet city of the dead, and notice how much 
better we can spell than our forefathers could, fills one with 
pride, and makes a man popular with himself. 

Although one of the oldest cities in the United States, San 
Antonio has no ancient graveyard. If the antiquarian were to 
spend months hunting up the last resting-places of the old 
San-Antonians who died between 1690 and 1800, he would not 
be rewarded by finding as much as a coffin-plate. Why it is 
that San Antonio has no ancient graveyard, is a question diffi- 
cult to answer. The first inhabitants of the valley of the San 
Antonio River were Indians. They were in a barbarous condi- 
tion, and, so far as we know, lived and died without any ceme- 
tery facilities. They seemed to have succeeded in passing 
away without any medical or clerical assistance, and knew 
nothing of the pomp and circumstance of a brass band at their 
funerals. The only thing about an Indian funeral that had a 
modern appearance was the remains. How thankful we should 
be for the benefits and accessories of our present civilization ! 

According to the best authorities, the first graveyard was 
established on the western side of the San Pedro. Until as 
late as 1840, it was a dangerous undertaking to bury the 
dead in the regular cemetery, on account of the unregenerate 
Indian. This may be an explanation of the fact, that the floors of 
the various churches rest upon the closely packed bodies of the 



330 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



former inhabitants. About the time of the Mexican war, there 
seems to have been a regular system of burying people. Ad- 
joining the Catholic cemetery, there was a large vacant lot, 
enclosed ; and in this, all those not of the faith were interred. 
It is estimated that about three thousand Protestants and other 
genuine sinners were buried in this vicinity. Over their re- 
mains, cattle browse, streets have been laid out ; and at the 

present time it is a fa- 
^'■^-■^^ - ' ' vorite spot for base - ball 

players to remember the 
sabbath on. 

Of all those whose re- 
mains are buried in this 
potter's field, the grave of 
but one is marked. In 
1849 the remains of the 
heroic Ben Milam, who 
fell at the storming of 
San Antonio in 1835, "^^^ 
who was buried in the 
courtyard of the Vera- 
mendi House, where he 
fell, were disinterred, and 
buried in the centre of an 
enclosed lot. A few years 
ago some one marked the 
spot with a properly in- 
scribed stone. Up to the 
time the stone was placed over the mortal remains of one of 
the greatest men that figured in Texas history, the road from 
San Antonio to Fredericksburg passed over his last resting- 
place. 

The whole city is one vast graveyard. The cheerful voice 
and affluent brogue of the Irish laborer is heard in the *' silent 
tomb " of many a forgotten Spanish gallant ; and the shovel 
scatters their bones every time a gas-pipe is laid. 

The military headquarters of the department of Texas are at 
San Antonio. Located on an elevation to the north-east of 




■■'% 



'T%.. "-. 



A CITY CEMETERY. 



MILITARY HEADQUARTERS. 33 I 

the city is the government depot, built of cut stone. Here the 
principal supplies of the department are kept. i 

The department of Texas includes the whole of the State, 
and part of the Indian Territory, and is under the command of 
Gen. Ord.^ The department comprises about twelve military 
posts, intended to protect about fourteen hundred miles of 
frontier. It is intended by the government, that the military 
should protect the frontier, and prevent the Mexicans and In- 
dians from depredating on the hardy frontiersman's live-stock ; 
but so far they have not got in the way of the marauders 
enough to seriously lessen the profits, or increase the risk in 
their business. 

Sometimes the Mexican general in command on the other 
side of the Rio Grande co-operates with Gen. Ord in discour- 
aging crime on the frontier, and sometimes he does not. Gen. 
Trevino was in command of the Mexican frontier forces when 
we were in San Antonio ; and it was generally believed that he 
was anxious to suppress the raiders who had been harassing 
the people of the Texas frontier for years, and was willing, in 
furtherance of that object, to join forces with Gen. Ord when 

practicable. 

Gen. Trevino had been particularly active at the time I 
speak of, having pursued and captured a small band of Indian 
raiders. He was invited to San Antonio, where the citizens 
gave a banquet in his honor. 

I had an interesting conversation with Col. Mocha on the 
subject of frontier outrages. The colonel is proprietor of a 
large wholesale grocery establishment. His principal business 
is with the military posts on the frontier. 

'' I did not see you at the reception of Gen. Trevino. It was 
a most enjoyable affair," I remarked. 

The colonel groaned as if he had been eating green apples. 

I continued, " Gen. Ord is satisfied that raiding is a thing of 
the past. Hereafter the white-winged messenger of peace will 
preside over our border relations, while war, grim-visaged war, 
will smooth out his wrinkled front, and " — 

I Since this was written, Gen. Augur has succeeded Gen. Ord in command of the depart- 
ment of Texas. 



332 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



" Please stop, young man. Listen to me a few minutes. Do 
you think I am a man of sound mind t " 

" Why, yes, colonel. I have no doubt on the subject." 
"Either I am ripe for a lunatic-asylum, or else these folks 
that have been wining and dining Gen. Trevino are. Have I 
got incipient softening of the brain .'* Are my worst fears fully 
realized 1 " and he passed his hands wearily over his dome of 
thought. 

**My friend," continued Col. Mocha, "are you aware that the 
United-States Government squanders nearly two millions annu- 
ally in this depart- 
ment, and that most 
of it is spent right 
here in San Anto- 
nio } Did you never 
suspect that this two 
millions is the water 
that keeps the mill 
going t Don't you 
know that Texas de- 
pends on the frontier 
posts to buy up all 
the corn, hay, wood, 
fodder, oats, and 
other supplies.-* 
Don't you know, 
that, if the military 
headquarters were 
moved, the city authorities would have to go to buying mowing- 
machines on credit, if they could get them, to keep down the 
grass on Commerce Street .'* Oh, I'm sick ! I'm sick ! I'm a 
whole hospital myself." 

" But, colonel, please explain how the visit ,of Gen. Trevino 
is going to spoil things so much." 

" I don't wonder at your failing to see what the smartest 
business-men are blind to. What is the reason the United- 
States Government keeps troops down here on the border .'' 
To whom are we mdebted for all this fatness, all this two 




I'M A WHOLE HOSPITAL.' 



THE WAR-DEPARTMENT. 333 

millions expended, but to these identical Kickapoos and Lipans 
that have been killed, captured, and discouraged by this identi- 
cal Gen. Trevino ? I'd like to have him out in the woods. I'd 
teach him that the poor, despised Indian had some friends left ; 
I'd teach him to ruin Western Texas this way. Eighty-five 
Indians captured and six killed — just think of it! There will 
not be enough left to get up a raid once a year ; and the conse- 
quence will be, all the troops in this department will be ordered 
to Dakota or Nevada, and the merchants and contractors up 
there will literally steal our money from us. It ain't good for 
me to talk about it. It makes me sick. And after this Gen. 
Trevino has as good as ruined us, the citizens here will turn 
out and welcome him as if he had given them twenty dollars 
apiece to be present." 

''But, colonel, remember the loss of life and stock on the 
frontier." 

" I remember it well enough. Once in a great while those 
poor Indians come over, kill half a dozen Mexican herders, and 
drive a few stock back. Now, in the name of all that is holy, 
can't Western Texas afford to lose a few Mexican shepherds, 
when she gets nearly two million dollars in government expen- 
ditures for them t Why, I'd be willing to help the Indians catch 
them, rather than that all these troops be moved away. Isn't it 
better that a few people on the frontier be killed and scalped 
than that we should all starve to death } And here we have 
gone and made such an infernal row that the Mexican Govern- 
ment, thinking we were in earnest, have actually gone to work 
killing off these Indians, the only Feal friends we had in Mexico. 
It is too bad. Something ought to be done about it." 

I said, '' I presume there will be a few Indians left to keep 
up the appearance of raiding, — enough to keep the troops 
here, anyhow. But, as you say, it does look as if suppressing 
raids from Mexico is being overdone. There should be mod-^ 
eration in all things." 

'' If," said the colonel, ''there are a few Indians left who are 
willing to help us out with an occasional raid, Gen. Trevino 
will make hash out of them as soon as he gets back, as he has 
been ovated so much here and in Galveston. Just as likely as 



334 ON A .MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

not he will go back and have another batch of our Indian 
friends shot, and make another trip. After he has done that 
about once, he will have to go a long way to find Gen. Ord and 
his troops. There will not be one left in the department. I 
reckon Gen. Ord wants to be ordered North, and that's why he 
has encouraged Trevino in his outrages on these Indian allies 
of ours." 

" Well, colonel, what is your remedy } " 

" In the first place, I would call a monstrous indignation 
meeting on the plaza. The first resolution would be to ask the 
Mexican consul at San Antonio, Senor Ornelas, to request his 
government to remove from his position Gen. Geronimo Tre- 
vino for high crimes and misdemeanors, for killing and other- 
wise discouraging Kickapoo and Lipan Indians, in a time of 
profound peace, the raiding Indians being the friends and bene- 
factors of Western Texas, and also requesting Gen. Trevino to 
restore to those Indians their weapons, ponies, scalps of Texans, 
and other personal property. The second resolution would be 
the appointment of a committee to take up a collection for 
widows and orphans of such Indians as may have been killed 
by order of our enemy. Gen. Tfevino, who should be burned in 
efiigy. But there is no use in talking : there is no public spirit 
nowadays, anyhow." 

The colonel, no doubt, would have said more if he had not 
felt sick. Talking on the subject had made him feel so ill that 
he had to leave me, and go in search of a stimulant. 

Much of the bustle and stir that are to be observed in San 
Antonio is due to the presence of the military headquarters. 
It costs the government several million dollars annually to 
protect the Texas frontier ; and a great part of this money, 
directly and indirectly, goes to San Antonio. You can hardly 
look around anywhere in the city without seeing U.S. on some- 
thing. Sometimes the omnipresent initials are on a mule, on a 
soldier's cap, on a government-wagon, and not unfrequently on 
the ragged blanket of one of the miserable beggars that are to 
be met with at every corner. 

A great deal has been said and written in favor of the reduc- 
tion of the army. It is flippantly alleged that the country has 



^'RESPECTFULLY REFERREDr 335 

» 

no need of a standing army, which is a perpetual menace to our 
republican form of government. This aspect of the question 
I have no disposition or intention to discuss on this occasion ; 
but when the cavillers go on to say that the officers of the army 
eat the bread of idleness, then I propose to join the issue. I 
maintain that a harder-worked set of men exists in no country. 
And those highest in rank have the most to do. So far from 
reducing the army, it ought to be re-enforced, as the present 
force is overtasking its strength. In order to give the outside 
public an insight into the amount of labor that devolves upon 
heads of departments, the following is respectfully submitted. 
And it is no imaginary sketch : what is stated actually occurred. 
On the eleventh day of November, 1878, Capt. C, of the 
Thirty-fourth Infantry, addressed an official communication to 
the assistant adjutant-general of the department of Texas, 
stating that Private Hugo Anderson lost or destroyed one mos- 
quito-bar frame, the property of the United States, and request- 
ing that a board of survey be convened to assess the money- 
value thereof. 

I made fervid inquiry, and found that the aforesaid mosquito- 
bar frame was very old and rickety, having seen much active 
service, and being so decrepit that the President would have 
been justified in placing it upon the retired list with other old 
veterans, so unserviceable was its condition. Capt. C, who 
was well and personally acquainted with the frame,, expressed a 
desire to swear, that, for several years past, the mosquito-bar 
frame was not fit to start a fire with. Upon mentioning fifty 
cents as the cash value of the frame, Capt. C. was astonished 
at my liberality, stating positively, that, when perfectly new, 
fifteen cents would have been an extravagantly preposterous 
offer. In all sober earnest, the bar-frame might have been 
worth, during mosquito season, about ten cents. 

But to return to Capt. C.'s communication asking for a board 
of survey. It went first to Assistant Adjutant-Gen. Thomas 
N. Vincent, who indorsed, under date of Nov. 11, 1878, — 

" Respectfully referred to the chief quartermaster of the department to 
know if there is not some other method of ascertaining the value of a mos- 
quito-bar frame than by a board of survey." 



2,^6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

On Nov. 12, Brevet Brig.-Gen. and Chief Quartermaster 
Benjamin C. Card indorses, — 

" Respectfully returned to the adjutant-general, department of Texas. 
The mosquito-bar frames on hand at this depot have been here for a long 
time, and there is no record of their cost." 

The next prominent official at San Antonio, who was to be 
worried by that ten-cent mosquito-bar frame, was the depart- 
ment commander himself. Indorsement No. 3 reads, under 
date of Nov. 14, 1878, — 

Respectfully forwarded to the adjutant-general of the army, with the re- 
quest that the price of a mosquito-bar frame may be communicated, in order 
to furnish information to the board of survey, in case one is to be convened, 
there being no data here to cover the case. 

(Signed) E. O. C. Ord, 

Brig.-Gen. U. S. Army, Coinmaiiding. 

The next thing we hear of the ghost of the mosquito-bar 
frame is, that it arrived safely at Washington. The fourth in- 
dorsement reads, — 

Washington, Nov. 22, 1878. 

Respectfully referred to the quartermaster-general. 

(Signed) E. D. Townsend, 

A djiUant-General. 

But the ghost obtained little rest from the quartermaster- 
general, although it learned something of its past history. In- 
dorsement No. 5 reads, — 

Respectfully referred to the adjutant-general of the army. A reference 
to invoice 48, abstract E, return of Lieut.-Col. S. B. Holabird, department 
quartermaster-general for first quarter 1874, shows that 3,376 mosquito- 
bars, and 1,790 frames, were turned over to him by Capt. A. N. Cherbonnier, 
medical storekeeper, under orders of the surgeon-general, dated Feb. 16, 
1874, for free distribution to different posts. Those now in possession of 
Capt. C, Thirty-fourth Infantr}', are part of the same lot. It is recommended 
that these papers be referred to the surgeon-general of the army for remark. 

By order of 

Stewart Van Vliet, 
Dept. QMarterinaster, Brevet Major-Ge^i., U.S.A. 

Received back Nov. 30. 



''RESPECTFULLY REFERRED:' 337 

I should remark, that each of these indorsements is accom- 
panied by cabalistic hieroglyphics and numbers indicating the 
volume in which all this nonsense had been copied. 

But the poor ghost of the frame ! After all this misery and 
railroad travel, the ghost is officially informed that he is of no 
value. But in obedience to military discipline it went back to 
E. D. Townsend, who, with almost contemptuous brevity, refers 
the matter to the surgeon -general, who knew all about the 
antecedents of the bar-frame ; for he respectfully refers it back, 
under date of Dec. 4, 1878, to the adjutant-general, with the 
additional remark, — 

The mosquito-bar frame in question, it appears, is one of a lot left over 
from the late war, which were unsuitable for the hospital bedstead in use in 
the army. Their sale was authorized by the Honorable the secretary of 
war, Oct. 4, 1873; but no advantageous sale could be made of them at San 
Antonio, Tex., at which point they were stored. Consequently, under sub- 
sequent authority of the secretary of war, dated Feb. 13, 1874, they were 
turned over to the quartermaster's department for gratuitous distribution to 
posts, as stated in fifth indorsement. Under the circumstances, I am of 
the opinion the one in question has no ratable value. 

J. W. Barnes, 

Sti7'geo7iGene7'al. 

The original voucher of Capt. C, covered with indorsements 
in all colors of ink, stamped and ruled from one end to the 
other, goes from the surgeon-general, Barnes, back to the famil- 
iar office of Adjutant-Gen. Townsend, who on the seventh day 
of December, 18x8, peremptorily orders the ghost back to Texas, 
calling attention to the fifth and seventh indorsements. Not- 
withstanding the cold weather, the ghost of the missing mos- 
quito-bar frame arrived back in his old home in the Alamo City; 
for on Dec. 18, 1878, he is ordered by the assistant adjutant- 
general of the department of Texas, Thomas M. Vincent, to 
appear before the Board of Survey that Capt. C. asked for 
before all this misery began. 

On Dec. 18 an order was issued nominating two United- 
States officers 

To convene at eleven o'clock of the loth, to assess the money-value, and 
22 



33S 



ON A MEXICAN 4VIUSTANG. 



fix the responsibility for the alleged loss, of one mosquito-bar frame, the 
property of the United States, for which Capt. C. is responsible. 
By command of Brig.-Gen. Ord. 

Thomas M. Vincent, Asst. Adjt.-Gen. 
Countersigned by 

Hugh Brown, Aide-de-Canip. 

This story of the ghost of a mosquito-bar frame, which is 
official, draws to a close. The Board of Survey convened at 




MEETING OF THE MILITARY BOARD. 



the appointed time, the faces of the members showing that 
they felt the fearful responsibilities resting upon them ; but, 
nevertheless, the vastness of the absurdity seems to have struck 
them, for their report reads, — 



THE SAN ANTONIO BOY. 339 

" Dec. 22. 

'• The Board met pursuant to order, the members being present, and, 
having maturely deliberated on the matter presented for their consideration, 
are of the opinion that the interest of the general government will be in no 
way prejudiced by permitting Capt. C. to drop the mosquito-bar frame from 
his return without further correspondence on the subject. The frame is 
without value ; and, having been turned over by the medical department for 
gratuitous distribution to the troops, it is not apparent how the bars can be 
made stores for issue upon requisition. The frames are of no possible 
value. The medical department did a wise thing in having the responsi- 
bility for them transferred to the quartermaster's department. The Board 
is certain that the quality of the frame reflected no credit on the purchasers. 
For the reasons above stated, the Board is of the opinion that the most 
ready settlement of the question is to authorize Capt. C. to drop the frame 
from his return, which the Board accordingly recommends." 

And yet, in the face of all this, there are newspapers and 
congressmen who assert that the army ought to be reduced 
because there is nothing for the officers to do. 

While in San Antonio the only person noticed, who was more 
over-worked than the soldier, was the schoolboy. 

When it comes to driving dull care away, the San Antonio 
boy is not without resources. He is familiar with all the vari- 
ous games that follow each other in succession ; he sees, too, 
that everybody else is kept posted on the subject. In winter 
and in early spring he is responsible, with the aid of his kite, 
for runaway teams, vehicles converted into kindling-wood, and 
an undue expansion of the mortuary report. When, thanks to 
the police, he no longer amuses himself with the kite, he next 
jeopardizes life and property with his little baseball. Then 
he smashes the windows, and wounds the legs of respectable 
citizens with his top. Just about the time people have got 
used to tops buzzing about their ears, the " nigger-shooter " 
mania breaks out. One live boy with a nigger-shooter, who is 
disposed to be industrious, and not above his business, can be 
looked up to with awe, and have his opinions commented on all 
over his ward. After all his fingers have been crippled, and a 
city ordinance has been passed making it a penitentiary offence 
for a boy to carry concealed weapons, he takes steps toward 
future distinction as a blackleg by gambling with marbles. All 



340 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

these innocent games follow each other very much as the 
mumps, measles, scarlet-fever, and children's other diseases do. 
As a steady pastime, he relies on making the connection, with 
a piece of twine, between an empty oyster-can and the con- 
tinuation ot a dog. Attending to the fruit-crop occupies his 
leisure moments. 

One evening, when out walking, we noticed several ladies 
and gentlemen quietly promenading up Avenue C, enjoying the 
pleasant evening air. They were laughing and talking, and ap- 
parently in good spirits, when suddenly the air was filled with 
female shrieks, cries of warning, and the party scattered like a 
covey of quail. They jumped up and thrashed the atmosphere 
with their arms and legs. Then one of them rushed off, but 
returned immediately with an armful of bowlders, which he 
hurled with fearful energy and dire imprecations at some object 
on the ground. An enormous snake was wriggling across the 
street. The gentleman with the bowlders still pursued the rep- 
tile, while a stout old gentleman stooped down every once in a 
while, and fairly warmed it with his cane. " Ha, take that ! " 
puffed the old gentleman, as he leaned over and hit a very 
effective blow. "I'll fetch him," shrieked the philanthropist, 
who had just returned with a fresh bosom full of geological 
specimens, one of which he hurled with such accuracy that it 
caromed on the elbow of the fat man, who, hobbling up to the 
offender, began, with tears in his eyes, to chastise him. While 
the two were fighting, and a third member of the party, who 
had been standing on the fence, was trying to part them, a fair 
specimen of the San Antonio boy, who was behind a tree, 
pulled in on a long string a dangerous-looking leather strap, 
shook himself, and murmured, — 

" Who wouldn't be a boy ? " 

The excitement passed over. The boy set his snake again, 
and waited. Two soldiers belonging to the Twenty-second 
Infantry came along. Just as they reached the reptile, it coiled 
itself up, and struck at them viciously, and then started to 
wriggle across the street. One of the soldiers jumped at least 
ten feet six inches, while the other recklessly sought to mash 



A WICKED SELL. 



341 



the head of the venomous reptile with the heel of his boot. 
Seeing the boy on the opposite side of the street, the kind- 
hearted soldier called out to him, ** Run, sonny, run ! he is 
making for you." The boy, thinking the soldier was going to 
chastise him, ran like a turkey, closely pursued by the snake, 
which in turn was mutilated from time to time by the boot-heel 




"I'LL FETCH HIM 



of the soldier. What the final result was, I do not know, as 
they all three turned the corner and disappeared, —the boy in 
the lead, the snake wriggling frantically a few feet behind him, 
the soldier vainly endeavoring to destroy the reptile, while the 
indignant spectators talked about lynching the soldier for as- 
saulting a boy. 



342 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



As I remarked at the outset, the San Antonio boy is not 
utterly devoid of expedients to drive off dull care. 

Almost every boy we met had sore eyes. Sore eyes do not 
make a boy amiable. I asked one whose head was bandaged, 
" Got sore eyes, sonny .? " , 

"Oh, no ! of course not. I tied up my eyes because I've o-ot 
a chilblain on my ankle." 







THE HUNGRY-LOOKING TEXAN 



43 



OH-J 



CHAPTER XXVI. 




T happened in San Antonio. One 
of the parties was a consump- 
tive from Connecticut ; the 
other, a commercial traveller 
from New York. They were 
stopping at the same hotel, and 
occupied adjoining rooms. The 
drummer was short of money : 
he had a splendid pistol, and he 
thought he would try and sell 
it. He said to himself, " I won- 
der if that hungry-looking Texan next door doesn't want to buy 
a pistol ! " So, putting the weapon in his breast-pocket, he 
walked into his neighbor's room. 

The invalid from Connecticut had been reading about a 
noted Texas desperado for whom there was a large reward 
offered, and he fancied the description fitted his unknown 
visitor: consequently, when the New-York drummer entered 
the room, shut the door, and put his hand in his breast-pocket, 
the Northern invalid began to 'shiver, and think of his past 
life. 

"What do-do-do-do you want t " asked the invalid. 
The drummer drew a large ivory-handled revolver (answering 
the description of the one that the celebrated desperado used 
on strangers), and said, — 

"■ I want twenty-five dollars for this pistol." 
The trembling hand of the invalid could hardly find its way 
into his pocket. 



344 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

** It is a good pistol: it never misses fire," said the drum- 
mer, bringing it to a half-cock. 

''Take you-you-your money," gasped the invalid. 

The drummer took the money, thanked him, laid the pistol 
on the table, and went out. 

As soon as the door was shut, the invalid from Connecticut 
breathed a huge sigh of relief, and said to himself, ** I'm glad 
the Texas desperado took my money, and spared my life. 
What a country this is, where you are robbed in broad daylight 
in a hotel ! I'll leave to-morrow for the North." 

As soon as the drummer got into his room, he remarked, ''Im 
in luck. I'm glad that old Texas desperado bought my revolver. 
Wonder how many men he'll shoot with it ! I'll get out of 
here, now that I have money to pay my bill." 

A short time afterward the Northern papers published a 
wonderful story, telling how a Texas desperado robbed an 
invalid in a San Antonio hotel. 

It is astonishing on what a small foundation of fact some of 
the Northern papers can base a tremendous display of well- 
feigned horror and pharisaical grief at the barbarity of Texans. 
Newspapers that fail to perceive any thing out of the way in a 
prize-fight are inconsolable with grief at a San Antonio bull- 
fight that never took place. It fairly makes their cheeks, sup- 
posing a newspaper to have cheeks, tingle with the blush of 
shame when they think of citizens of the United States being 
guilty of such atrocities. When the imaginative and gifted 
editor of a New-York or Boston paper has concocted some 
unusually stupid cock-and-bull story illustrative of the deprav- 
ity of the human race, he does not think he has deviated suf- 
ficiently from the path of rectitude, unless he locates it at San 
Antonio. 

The fact is, that the harmless farce usually called a bull- 
fight has not been performed in San Antonio for five or six 
years. All the so-called bull-fights that have been perpetrated 
in San Antonio since 1849 have lacked a great deal of being 
as tragic as the public have been led to suppose. When bull- 
fights were not forbidden by a city ordinance, the arena was 
enclosed by a board fence, affording unusual facilities for the 




SAN ANTONIO BULL-FIGHT. 



THE BULL-FIGHT. 345 

protection of the heroic matador, who could climb over in case 
the bull, in his wild endeavors to escape, should run in his 
direction. I do not wish to cover up or hide the truth. In 
one or two instances the bull-fighters have not come out 
wholly unscathed. In 1853 a young Mexican matador, re- 
markable for his fearlessness and wonderful agility, was fright- 
fully gored by a splinter a quarter of an inch long, on the top 
of the fence over which he was crawling in a great hurry, the 
pine splinter penetrating even through the seat of a pair of old 
buckskin breeches that he had borrowed for the occasion. But 
such horrible scenes were rare ; although, on another occasion, 
A.D. 1739, one of the bull-fighters, being tired, went fast asleep 
in the gory arena ; and the infuriated bull, seeking to make his 
escape, stumbled over the sleeping matador, and the poor brute, 
breaking its leg, had to be shot. This was claimed to be the 
greatest bull-fight that had ever taken place in San Antonio. 
All the others were comparatively harmless. There is a dim, 
misty legend, that, in 1773, an old cow being substituted for 
the usual ferocious bull, a Mexican, while peddling peanuts in 
the arena to the ensanguined gladiators, was chased ; and, just 
as he was climbing over the fence, the cow helped him to the 
height of about fifteen feet, and he demoralized the governor- 
general's (Don Bustamente's) new stove-pipe hat when he came 
down on it. The governor-general took it good-humoredly, 
and straightened out his battered hat with his boot, remarking 
gravely, "Good friend, you seem to think this is Ascension 
Sunday." But even this is not well authenticated. 

It is true, that, in 1878, there was an attempt to get up a 
fight between a toothless, decrepit old lion, far gone in con- 
sumption, and a Texas bull ; but there was no fight to speak 
of, and the circus gentlemen from the North, who sought to 
revive the sports of the Roman amphitheatre, made a financial 
fizzle of it, and were sold out by the sheriff. But in the news- 
papers it was all charged to the brutality of the San-Antonians. 

Some of the foreign invalids who come to San Antonio meet 
with many disappointments. I saw one of them a few days 
ago. He had read in the Northern papers about the Lord's 
Day being desecrated by bull-fights in San Antonio, and he 



346 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

believed every word of it, and a great deal more. He was so 
inexpressibly shocked and disgusted that he felt it his duty to 
come to San Antonio for his health, where he could see those 
bull-fights in all their original sinfulness. As soon as he got 
out of the car, he asked if he was in time for that evening's 
bull-fight. He stated that bull-fighting was an outrage on 
American civilization, and said he came here that he might 
benefit by the climate. When he found out that the city coun- 
cil had prohibited bull-fighting, he seemed hurt. He waited a 
whole week, expecting to be consoled by a bowie-knife duel 
on the plaza ; but, finding his appetite growing worse all the 
time, he returned to his home. He warns invalids, through 
the press, not to come to Texas, as the reported bull-fights are 
a myth, and the climate is too dusty for any except healthy 
invalids. In a word, San Antonio is not a good place for a sick 
man who is suffering to see a bull-fight. 

Having occasion, while in San Antonio, to purchase a pack- 
age of smoking-tobacco and a pipe, the doctor stepped into a 
grocery-store that had in front of it a statute of one of the 
first converts to Christianity in the San Antonio valley. The 
establishment was kept by a man and his wife, who, judging 
by their appearance and accent, were new arrivals from the 
North. After the doctor had received his tobacco, and was 
about to pay for it, the proprietor said, — 

" You have not yet had/^/^;/." 

The doctor had not the most remote idea what pelon was. 
It might have been the Mexican name for the small-pox, for all 
he knew. In fact, he was rather inclined to think that it was ; 
although it might be some Mexican dish, made hot enough 
with red pepper to burn a hole in the roof of a stranger's 
mouth. But the doctor never allows any one to think that 
there is any thing in earth below, in the firmament above, or in 
the waters under the earth, that he is not as familiar with as if 
he had made it himself : so he answered with perfect compla- 
cency, " Oh, yes ! I had it when I was a child, very bad, on both 
sides ; but thanks to a strong constitution, and there being, no 
doctors in the neighborhood, I managed to pull through." 

The storekeeper stared wildly, and then repeated, — 



FELON. 347 

*' You have not yet had yom peloji'' 

**0h.!" said the doctor, "I did not understand you at first. 
No, I haven't had my peloji yet." 

The doctor perceived that he had made a mistake. PeIo7i 
was not a disease, as he had at first imagined : very likely it 
v^ras some new-fangled drink. It would never do for the store- 
keeper to think that the doctor was not familiar with pclo7i : 
so he remarked, " No, I haven't had my pelo7i yet ; but, if you 
will join me, we will step around and have it now." 

The storekeeper indulged in such immoderate laughter that 
the doctor had to wait for some time until the man had become 
calm. 

" Another stranger fooled on pelon ! I got sold worse than 
that. Do you know that my not knowing what pelon was 
nearly consigned me to the poorhouse } I came very near 
going into bankruptcy, — genuine, old-fashioned bankruptcy, 
where you don't have any thing left when you get through." 

" How was that t " said the doctor. 

" Well, you see, me and my wife came here perfect strangers. 
We didn't know any thing of the customs and manners of the 
people. We opened a nice family grocery-store, that had in it 
every thing the public needed. The very first customer, as 
soon as we had sold him the several articles he wanted, said, 
'Well, now, I want some pelon! I didn't know what it was; 
but, not wanting to show my ignorance, I told him that I had 
not got all my goods in yet, but would have a large invoice of 
pelon by next freight-train. He went off apparently displeased 
about something, and next day I saw him coming out of the 
rival establishment. He had transferred his custom to where 
they kept pelon. Every customer, white, black, and Mexican, 
wanted pelon ; and, because I didn't have it right then, they 
never came back a second time. Some of them would return 
what they had ordered, and go off mad, just because I told 
them I was out of pelon, or that I did not keep it on hand. 
My wife said to me, ' You must go and buy some pelon : I 
could have sold bushels of it this morning.' That evening two 
negro boys were passing. One said, * Let's go in heah, and 
buy dat ar ; ' to which the other responded, ' You don't cotch 



348 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

me gwine into no place whar dey don't gib ye no pclon ; ' and 
the boys crossed over the street, and transferred their custom 
to the other store. I made up my mind to find out what pelon 
was. The night was dark, and no one could see me : so I 
walked across the street after the boys, and listened at the 
door. The negroes bought a box of sardines, a bottle of beer, 
and some other household remedies ; and, as they paid for what 
they had purchased, one of them said, 'pelon' The proprietor 
of the store took down a glass jar, and handed each one of the 
boys a stick of barber-pole candy. 

"■ ' I don't want none ob dat ar pcloji : gimme a couple ob 
cigarettes.' 

** ' Keno ! ' I ejaculated. I saw through the whole campaign 
plan of the enemy, who had well nigh forced me to capitulate. 
Peloii was nothing more nor less than any little trifle thrown 
in, — a kind of voluntary commission to the customer. I soon 
became celebrated for my peloiiy and in a short time regained 
all my lost custom. Won't you have a cigar .'' " 

The doctor took the cigar and strolled out, enriched with 
some valuable information regarding local customs. 

The ysord pelon is a corruption of the Mexican or Spanish 
word peloncillo, a small cone of sugar. It is used in Mexico 
instead of crushed sugar. The Mexican customer is in the habit 
of demanding and receiving a piece of peloncillo whenever he 
buys any thing : hence the term pelon. It is a synonyme of 
the *' please-remember-the-waiter " of the English, Iht po?irboire 
and trinkgeld of the continent, and the backsheesh of Asia. 
Upon reflection it will be found that peloji has always existed, 
and will ever exist, among all people. It is the axle-grease on 
the hub of trade. If it were not for pelo?i, the wheels on the 
car of commerce would creak insufferably. 

Sunday is the festal day in San Antonio. The saloons are 
all open, and the variety theatres have special services. The 
Germans go to the park and beer-gardens, and drink beer. 
The Mexicans go to church in the morning, and spend the 
remainder of the day at monte or in the cockpit ; while the 
Americans who are not sick in bed, or riding around town in 
buggies, go fishing. Whenever you see two young men and a 



SUNDAY IN SAN ANTONIO. 



349 



dozen fishing-poles in an ambulance standing at the door o£ a 
gr ery, while the grocer's man is packing the rear end of the 
rhiclJ'with soda-crackers, dernijohns sardmes, and beer-bot 
ties, you know that to-morrow will be Sunday. At least that 
Is what a newspaper man. whose acquaintance we made at the 




TO-MORROW WILL BE SUNDAY. 



San Pedro Park, told us. Among other things relating to the 
observance of the sabbath that he told us, was the follow- 

'""He said. " I once wrote a local item in the ' Herald.' It 
read like this : — 



350 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" ' From the fact that a number of ambulances loaded down with demi- 
johns and fishing-poles were seen passing out of town this afternoon, in 
the direction of the fishing-hole on the Leona, we feel almost certain that to- 
morrow will be the Lord's Day. We wish to state, for the information of 
the guilty parties who desecrate the sabbath, that hereafter we will publish 
a list of all Sunday fishermen who fail to send us a fair share of the fish. 
We wish it, moreover, to be distinctly understood, that small perch and cat- 
fish will not satisfy us. We insist on trout. There are too many bones in 
perch and catfish to justify us in- failing to do our whole duty in exposing 
those who defy alike the laws of God and man. Remember the sabbath-day 
to keep it holy.' 

" This went the rounds of the American press, and was, of 
course, regarded as a joke. But the editor of the 'Garten 
Laube,' a German monthly magazine, saw the squib, interpreted 
it literally, took it for a text, and wrote a long article on 
^ PiLvitaiiishe Intoleranz' The article affirmed, that while the 
celebrated Blue Laws were enforced rigidly only in the New- 
England States, yet the spirit of Puritan intolerance extended 
over the whole country, even as far south as the borders of 
Mexico ; that while men and women were not actually tortured 
for violating the Blue Laws in the South, yet the baleful effects 
of these laws could be seen cropping out in the every-day life 
of the people. Here was some narrow-minded bigot (meaning 
me) who openly threatened to expose to public scorn and con- 
sequent ostracism those who had shaken off the shackles of 
superstition, and had the boldness to follow the dictates of 
their own consciences in going fishing on Sunday. * From the 
reference to demijohns, we infer,' continues the * Garten Laube,' 
'that the denounced and execrated fishermen are not miserable 
temperanzlers or besotted watersimples, but believe in using 
the foaming goblet. We would like to call attention, not only 
to the intolerance of Puritanism, but to its utter hollowness, its 
rank hypocrisy. This puritanical water-fanatic, while denoun- 
cing the wickedness of fishing on Sunday, openly attempts to 
levy blackmail, and demands a portion of the fish. He even 
goes to the extreme limit of impudence, when he states that 
none but the most desirable, those with the fewest bones, will 
prevent him from holding his victims up to be sacrificed by the 
mob on the altar of puritanic intolerance.' 



A CONSCIENTIOUS SALOON-KEEPER. 35 I 

"Now, you may think I am joking ; but, if you will look over 
the 'Garten Laube ' for the year 1875, you will find the article 

referred to." 

At San Antonio there is a saloon-keeper who is very con- 
scientious in the observance of our Christian sabbath. One 
Sunday morning two exquisitely dressed young gentlemen, 



.<s'=\* 




4\ 



f !i ( \ 












/ . ,i m. 




"YOU CAN'T DESECRATE THE SABBATH WITH MY DICE." 

with small- canes, and with rosebuds in their coat -lapels, 
dropped into this man's saloon, en route to church. They 
called for liquid refreshments, possibly in anticipation of a dry 
sermon ; and in a few minutes, like '' drowning men," they were 
''grasping at straws." Presently one of them said, "Gimme 
the dice : I want to shake." 

But the barkeeper sighed, and said, "You can't desecrate 



3S^ 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



the sabbath with my dice as long as I know what religion 
is." 

"Why, ole fel," responded one of the youths, "I only want 
to shake with Tom to see who will have to furnish the quarter 
when the plate is being passed around." 

" That's a horse of another color," was the mollified reply, as 

the dice was produced. 
*' I thought you wanted 
to gamble on Sunday ; 
and I'll be blamed if you 
can come that on me as 
long as I have a here- 
after to go to." And he' 
took a fresh cigar, and 
stirred up something 
nice for himself, as he 
gently whistled, with 
one eye on the young 
men, and the other one 
on his slate, ''A charge 
to make I have." 

San Antonio has more 
fence and dead-wall ad- 
vertisements than any 
city of its size in the 
world ; and they are 
written and printed and 
painted in several lan- 
guages. Any artist who 
can procure a few pots 
of red and blue paint is 
allowed to throw as 
much soul as he pleases into the patent-medicine advertise-' 
ments, and other works of art, on the fences, barns, and rocks. 
One man with long hair, a wild light in his eyes, and looking 
as if he ought to be run through a washing-machine, labors like 
a man hoeing corn ; and in a few hours even those who cannot 
read, find themselves lifted up to a higher and purer life by 




SPRING 



LIVER-ENCOURAGER, ' 353 

the legend, "Try Dr. McFraud's liver-encourager." Next day 
another artist posts a bill for a strolling revivalist under it ; 
so that, both together, they read, ''Try Dr. McFraud's liver- 
encourager." — "Prepare to meet thy God." 

During a political campaign, the war proclamations of the 
rival gladiators may be seen on the same outhouse. While the 
candidates may thus be said to be billing together, they cannot 
be said to be cooing together, if the language they use toward 
each other indicates any thing. Information where to buy cab- 
bage-plants, and the best place to procure genuine Havana 
cigars, may be found in startling proximity. The sale of sheep, 
and a call for a political meeting, read as if one and the same 
document. The city council has already got out an ordinance 
prohibiting this. Newspapers are the proper medium for ad- 
vertising ; for, after the public has read the advertisement, the 
newspapers can be used to cut patterns out of, and to wrap 
things in, which is more than can be done with a ten-foot plank 
fence with a row of nails on top. Who ever heard of anybody 
wrapping a piece of old cheese in the side of a barn } And yet 
many prefer to patronize the fence and the side of the barn as 
an advertising medium, instead of a newspaper, at the risk of 
having the owner of the property come out and feed his bull- 
dog on the artist with the vigorous arm, and the wild, poetic 
eye. 

23 



354 



.ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 




CHAPTER XXVII- 

NE morning we saw an intoxicated 
cowboy riding a pony at full speed 
down Commerce Street, with a 
policeman on horseback, and 
about a dozen dogs, in close pur- 
suit. The cowboy was yelling in 
what he doubtless considered a 
sociable and good-humored way, 
but which was evidently against 
the city ordinances. In former 
times it used to be very fashion- 
able for hardy frontiersmen to 
^ \-^ come to San Antonio to amuse 

themselves. The recreation sometimes took the playful turn 
of riding into a saloon on a mustang, and engaging in target- 
practice at the lamps, the barkeeper, or any other conspicuous 
object that happened to strike the eye of the gay and festive 
rover o'er the flower-bespangled prairies. Ordinarily, however, 
the searcher for relaxation would be satisfied, for the time 
being, with galloping at high speed through the streets, and 
shooting a few times at the dogs that happened to be within 
range. Unless an officer made himself obtrusive, he was rarely 
interfered with. The hilarious cowboy did not care to hunt 
the officer up, and the officer entertained the same sentiments 
towards the reveller. If it came to the worst, a fine of a few 
dollars would repair the damage to the peace and dignity of 
the city. 



THE HILARIOUS COWBOY. 



355 








Times have changed since 
then. Now if a young man, 
who may never have visited 
San Antonio before, under- 
takes to shoot at the lamps, 
or indulges in any eccentrici- 
ties of that character, he finds 
himself very much bewildered. 
Instead of creating admira- 
tion and awe, and being spo- 
ken of as a candidate for 
sheriff, as formerly, he im- 
mediately becomes such an 
object of pity that the spec- 
tators feel like taking up a 
collection for him. He is 
pulled off his horse and 
thrown down on the pave- 
ment by a couple of police- 
men. His pistol is ruthlessly taken away from him ; and, while 

one heavy policeman sits on 
his stomach, the other ex- 
plores his pockets for more 
pistols. Then they put nip- 
pers on him, and lead him 
away in triumph to the lock- 
up, without stopping to scrape 
the mud off his person. After 
he has spent a very disagree- 
able night, he is brought be- 
fore the recorder to answer to 
the following high crimes and 
misdemeanors: disturbing 
the peace and quiet of the 
neighborhood, carrying con- 
cealed weapons, furious rid- 
ing, resisting an officer in the 
discharge of his duty, quarrel- 




356 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. ^ 

ling and fighting, obstructing the sidewalks, and such other of- 
fences as he may have perpetrated. As the fine in each case 
may be as high as a hundred dollars, the reveller is, to some 
extent, at the mercy of the recorder. That such a pastime as 
"taking the town" is expensive in the long-run, needs no par- 
ticular elaboration : hence it comes, that, of late years, San An- 
tonio has lost many of her best customers. They take their 
custom to some other town. Once in a great while an old- 
fashioned boy from the cow counties reminds the city people of 
the happy days gone by. 

These cowboys do not come to town more than once or twice 
in a year. Some of them come distances of more than a hun- 
dred miles ; and when they get to town they are determined to 
**take it all in." Their ignorance of city ways and manners 
leads to many ludicrous mistakes. 

" What time do you eat dinner here } " inquired a frontiers- 
man of the clerk of the Menger Hotel. 

"From twelve to three." 

" From twelve to three ! " whooped the astonished cowboy. 
" Take you three hours to fill up, does it } And they talk about 
it being unhealthy in town. Well, it just gets me, it do ! " 
And then he went into the dining-room, and loaded steadily 
until the three hours were up, and came out saying that he 
"felt sort o' satisfied, and fixed up for business." 

San Antonio is famous for its dogs and rats. In regard to 
the dogs, it can be said, without risk, that there are more of 
these movable flea-ranches in San Antonio than in Constanti- 
nople, so noted for its dogs ; and all of them assist at open-air 
concerts, and carry on animated joint discussions, every night 
in the week. The unsuccessful searcher after slumber can 
hear them calling each other liars, and impeaching each other's 
records, all night long. A brief history of the San Antonio 
dog (there are two kinds of them) cannot fail to be of interest 
to those who are so fortunate as not to know any thing of them 
by actual experience. The first dog that settled in San An- 
tonio came here with the Spaniards, and is that bandy-legged 
absurdity known to scientists as the no-hair dog. Naturalists 
who have studied the animal closely do not all agree regarding 



DOGS. 



357 



him ; but the majority are of the opinion that the animal re- 
ceived this name from the fact, that with the exception of a 
blond tuft between the ears, and another on the tip of the 
tail, he is as destitute of hair as the inside of a churn. The 
Mexicans call him the pelon dog. I believe he is the genuine 
Barbary. His hide is of a dark-purple color ; and, when he is 
not in motion, he might readily be taken for a cast-iron dog if 
it were not for the tuft of hair ._ ,- - 

on his tail. The naturalists 

tell us that a bunch of hair ,, : ' 

never thrives at the end of a - _; 

cast-iron dog's tail. 

At the present time there 
are not so many pelon dogs in 
San Antonio as there used to 
be. Being of a tropical origin, 
they suffer greatly during the 
northers in winter, and many 
of them die from exposure to 
the cold. The Mexican women 
are very fond of these dogs, 
and take great care of them. 
As the Mexican population 
decreases, the pelon dog also 
becomes scarce. He is always fat, probably because, owing to 
his hairless condition, he is not scouted over by detachments of 
fleas, as is the case with the Anglo-Saxon dog, whose mind is 
thus kept in a perpetually perturbed state. 

After the advent of the American, a new kind of dog, that 
before that time was utterly unknown to the Mexicans, put in 
an appearance. Like his master, he had come to stay. He 
soon created a yearning for solitude on the part of the Mexican 
dog. Whenever the pelon went out to take the air, this new- 
comer made his acquaintance, the duration of which depended 
on the hold the intruder got. 

The vast number of dogs that infest San Antonio was the 
result of another nuisance, — the rat. Up to the year 1855 
rats were unknown. In that year the citizens undertook to 







THE NO-HAIR DOG. 



35^ ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

establish gas-works. When the gas-pipes arrived, several va- 
grant rats jumped out. From these first settlers have descended 
the millions of rats that have devastated the storerooms, and 
still continue to XoMy prestainos on the citizens, in spite of poi- 
son, traps, dogs, and all the profanity that can be brought to 
bear on them. Many of the buildings are of soft rock, and 
the rats catacomb the walls in every direction. Where there 
was a single rat in 1855, there were a dozen married ones, with 
large families, in 1856; and they have multiplied in increased 
ratio ever since. Every attempt to reduce their numbers 
failed. Those who placed their hopes in traps found them 
a snare and a delusion. The rats seemed to grow fat on poi- 
son. Finally some wise man, whose name posterity fails to 
record, suggested terriers. The whole population became in- 
fected with the rat-terrier fever. Heads of families sold their 
only pair of derringers to enable them to buy terriers. While 
the excitement was raging, the pawnbroker did a lively busi- 
ness. It was the popular delusion that a terrier could follow a 
rat into a hole no larger than a half-dollar. This was not the 
terrier's understanding of it. He expected the rat to be caught 
in a trap, and then placed in an arena built for the purpose. 
Most families found this too expensive, and in a very short 
time almost everybody had terriers to sell. The pawnbrokers, 
for some inexplicable reason, refused to advance on terriers. 
They would not take them at the most extravagant discount. 
The terriers have multiplied almost as rapidly as the rats ; 
and when, on the streets of San Antonio, you are not look- 
ing at a rat, you are sure to have a crop-eared terrier in sight. 
The rats sometimes die, but it cannot be properly said of 
them that they pass away. The old time-honored custom of 
depositing the remains of rats that have come to a violent end, 
in the street, is still kept up with a great deal of superfluous 
persistence by many of the citizens. By objecting to dead 
rats being thrown into the street, I do not wish to be under- 
stood as advocating that they should be left on the pavement, 
or filed away for future reference in the irrigating ditches. I 
do not even urge upon the owners of the defunct rodents, that 
they be flung over the fence into the neighboring yard, where 



RATS, 359 

they are sometimes left to generate a bad odor and newspaper 
comments. Nor is it sympathy for the rats that instigates me 
to refer to this nuisance. It does not hurt a dead rat in the 
least to be run over by a loaded dray. There are other rea- 
sons, but there is no positive necessity for elaborating them. 

In 1855, when there were comparatively few Americans in 
the city, an old Mexican shoemaker, named Pancho Hernan- 
dez, had a shop on the Military Plaza. He had a young and 
rather good-looking wife. Pancho was a man of considerable 
influence, and was quite a favorite with the Americans, particu- 
larly those who ran for office. He spent much of his time with 
the Americans, and soon became so saturated with American 
civilization that he preferred whiskey to the vile mezcal on which 
his ancestors for hundreds of years had relied for inspiration. 
He even acquired a fondness for American food ; and one day 
he actually brought home a large canvas-covered ham, much to 
the disgust of his wife, who exclaimed, — 

V Ah, Panco ! those dogs of gringoes will be the death of 
you yet. You no longer find any pleasure in the juicy taniale 
of your ancestors. You no longer observe the sabbath-day to 
keep it holy by attending the service at the cockpit like a good 
Christian ; but you are off every Sunday with your American 
friends, playing billiards. And now you bring home that vile 
ham. I wish the Devil had it, and all the Americans in the town." 

"■ Excepting that tall one, with light hair, who never comes 
here except when I am away," observed Pancho, as he hung up 
the despised ham on a nail in the adobe wall. As Mrs. Her- 
nandez refused to cook the ham, it hung on the wall for several 
weeks. One day, while Pancho was absent electioneering, the 
red-headed American to whom Pancho had alluded came in. 
He said he wanted to see Pancho ; but, he not being present, 
Mrs. Pancho seemed to answer the purpose just as well. In 
his eagerness to have her understand precisely what he wanted, 
he had inadvertently placed his arms around her neck, and had 
his mouth very close to her mouth, when she happened to 
notice the ham on the wall. Valgeme Dios ! It moved, it 
flopped about. The poor woman believed the Devil was in the 
ham, and had come to carry her away. She emitted a yell that 



360 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

made the inhabitants away out in the suburbs suppose that 
Indians were attacking the town. The auburn-haired Ameri- 
can went out through the window like a streak. Mrs. Pancho 
resolved to lead a new life, and to keep her eye on that ham. 

That very same day Pancho, who had been assisting in con- 
solidating the Mexican vote, his wife being at church, was 
scared into comparative sobriety by seeing the ham wriggle. 
He rubbed his eyes, and saw it wriggle again. The diabolo 
was in the ham on the wall on account of the sins he, Pancho, 
had committed during the heat of the campaign : so Pancho 
strolled out hurriedly, with a howl on his lips, in search of a 
priest. Father Thomas Aquinas, a newly arrived prelate from 
the south of Ireland, was a very devout young man ; but when 
Pancho begged him to come — with bell, book, and candle — 
to drive the Devil out of the ham, he smiled so audibly that he 
interrupted an auctioneer's flow of eloquence on the opposite 
side of the plaza: When he got to Pancho's house, and saw- 
that fine ham hanging on the wall, there was moisture in the 
corners of his mouth. He said he would have to take the ham 
to his room, where he had all the facilities for expelling the 
evil spirit. He was reaching out to remove it from the nail on 
the wall, when he recoiled with an ejaculation of horror, for 
the ham kicked at him. 

**I forgot entirely we were in Lent, and forbidden to ate 
mate," muttered the conscience-stricken priest, as he crossed 
himself, and started at a dog-trot for the nearest church. 

The shoemaker's shop was empty. A black, woolly head 
was inserted through the door, and Sam Johnsing, a reliable 
colored man, stealthily entered. He advanced towards the 
ham, and was just about to sequestrate it, when he saw it move. 
He intimated that the Devil was in the ham, and he sauntered 
out as slowly as if fired out of a gun. 

The excitement among the Mexican population was intense. 
A large mob collected around the building ; but nobody could 
be induced to enter, until, a Texas ranger having put several 
bullets through the ham, another reckless American pushed it 
off the nail with a long pole, and then the rat was out of the 
bag. In the soft adobe wall where the ham had been was a 



A MEXICAN MENDICANT. 361 

hole the size of a man's wrist, which was invisible as long as 
the ham was hanging on the wall. There was no ham at all in 
the yellow canvas cover. There was nothing inside of the 
cover of the ham except the bone. The intelligent rats had 
performed the remarkable engineering feat of making a tunnel 
inside of the adobe wall, it coming out behind the ham. They 
had then eaten a hole into the ham, climbed into it, and eaten 
it all up, except the outside cover, which preserved the plump, 
outside appearance of the ham, while inside it was as hollow 
and deceptive as the piety of Pancho, his wife, the red-headed 
American, the priest, and Sam Johnsing. 

Pancho had frequently noticed a large rat that several times 
ran out into the middle of the floor, looked up at the ham as if 
he was taking measurements and bearings of the exact position 
of the ham on the wall, and then ran back into his hole. That 
the rats should be able to hit the exact spot on the wall where 
the ham was hung shows, that, as far as intelligence goes, they 
were probably ahead of Pancho, his wife, and all the rest of the 
crowd : anyhow, the rats were no doubt quite as moral, which 
is the moral of this entertaining little fable. 

Those who have never seen a Mexican mendicant, and who 
never expect to see one, are to be envied ; and, when it comes 
to a deformed specimen, it will turn out to be a paying invest- 
ment to hire a special train, and go away somewhere to avoid 
seeing one, so repulsive is the sight. I met one of these 
beggars on the main plaza. He was mounted on a small and 
doleful donkey. It was the nearest approach to a beggar on 
horseback that I ever saw. A mendicant, when he desires to 
excite sympathy, usually relies on his extremities. This one 
literally relied on all of his extremities, which were twisted in 
a most startling manner ; but you could not give them the 
attention they deserved, as his face, and particularly his nose, 
had superior claims. Parts of his hands, feet, and nose, were 
gone ; and the small-pox had very much damaged the rest of 
him. Reining up his donkey in front of me, he made a short 
speech on finance, concluding with some reference to internal 
affairs ; and then he held out a small piece of his hand, which 
was very much twisted, and resembled in shape the new map of 



362 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Turkey. He was going to show me a wound on his back, but 
I thought that would be asking too much of a stranger. I de- 
posited a dime on the Turkish frontier. He was so filled with 




THE MEXICAN MENDICANT. 



gratitude that he was about to unwind some bandages ; but I 
was afraid of losing my appetite, — the only one I had, — so we 
parted, the rider giving me an unconditional present of his 
blessing, as I passed down the narrow street. 



THE JUDGE. 363 

An old gentleman sat near me in the courtyard of the Men- 
ger Hotel. He was carving the arm of his chair with a pocket- 
knife. Looking up, he asked me if I had been in the country 
any length of time. I knew what he was trying to work up 
to : he was going to ask me if I had been to the missions yet. 
I said I had only been in the country long enough to see all the 
missions, and a few other historic spots, including the battle- 
field of San Jacinto. 

" I came to San Antonio with the cholera." 

'* Did you have it bad. Judge t " 

The judge stopped sculpturing the chair, and explained, — 

'' I did not have the cholera when I came here : but I came 
with the cholera ; that is, I came here the same year the cholera 
came." 

To encourage him, I said, " I have heard that it was so 
healthy in San Antonio that people who wanted to die had to 
leave the city, and that the air was so dry and pure that old 
people dried up, and blew away." 

''That statement is a lie, sir, gotten up by some Yankee 
scribbler to injure our State. I can show you an old man who 
never dries up, but keeps on talking and gassing all day long. 
Besides, if a man dries up, how can he keep on blowing away } 
I would like to talk to the man who got up that lie on the 
people." 

" What year was it. Judge, that you said the cholera came to 
San Antonio .'' " 

"The same year Ben Milam's remains were taken up, and 
buried on the other side of the San Pedro." 

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. "Judge, what 
year was it you said Milam died with the cholera.'*" 

The judge got angry, and sculptured the chair with increased 
ferocity and the large blade of his pocket-knife. After a pause, 
he said, — 

"I'd like to know who said that Milam died of the cholera.-^ 
He didn't die of the cholera, but fell, fighting the Mexicans." 

The judge got up, and looked as if he wanted to fight. Tak- 
ing me by the arm, he said he wanted to speak to me privately. 
I was a stranger in a strange land, — very strange, — and there 



364 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

was no policeman near. He led me away in the direction of a 
beer-saloon. "Thank Heaven!" said I to myself, "I'll find a 
policeman there! The judge said he meant business. I did 
not come to San Antonio for business : I came to enjoy myself." 
Then I began to wonder if it would be of any use to apologize. 
What would be the verdict of the coroner t Would the North- 
ern papers call it "another Southern outrage".'* and would 
the judge be acquitted, — temporary insanity, or absence of 
witnesses t 

" Let me call your attention to this," said the judge ; and he 
pulled a pistol out of his pocket. I was about to make a dash 
for liberty, when he took from the same pocket a bundle of 
cards, and placed the pistol back again in his pocket. " Read 
that card-, and you will see that I am a candidate for coroner 
before the people's meeting to-night : my friends are trying to 
bring me out, and I have yielded." 

"But I cannot help you, Judge, as I have not got a vote 
here." 

" I know it. Colonel ; but you can help me. Just mix in the 
crowd. Hurrah for Judge Bangs whenever you get a chance ; 
and, if any one says any thing about my war record, call him a 
liar. When I'm elected coroner, maybe I'll be able to do some- 
thing for you. What will you take } " 

I took the judge by the hand, and told him that I would be 
glad to do what I could for him, and then I made my escape. 

We attended a grand concert that took place on Saturday 
evening in Turner Hall. The performance was by amateurs. 
I cannot say I relished the first piece much : it was an over- 
ture by a brass band. A brass band is too eloquent in a hall, 
particularly when aided and abetted by a large drum. Before 
the overture was over, the audience, with the exception of one 
man, who was blessed with partial deafness, were willing to 
make overtures to the Legislature to double the tax on drum- 
mers. A solo (" Swabean Maiden ") was beautifully rendered 
by Miss Maria Lacoste, who possesses a wonderfully pure alto 
voice. A chorus by the Beethoven Maennerchor came next. 

During the pauses between the pieces I amused myself by 
studying the drop-curtain, on which was a very good painting 



A GRAND CONCERT. 



365 



of the celebrated castle of Miramar, where the unfortunate 
Carlotta was confined. The castle was very good ; but the 
firmament above, in consequence of its having been rolled up 
as a scroll, looked as if there was soon going to be a storm. 
There were, however, two young men near me, who assisted in 




WHICH OF "EM IS BEETHOVEN?' 



keeping me in good humor. They were friends. One was 
from the country, while the other had been a resident of the 
city for some months. When the Beethovens were singing, 
the happy peasant from the rural districts, who had been 
studying the printed programme, inquired amiably, — 
" Which of 'em is Beethoven } " 



366 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" I don't know," responded the other. 

" Isn't that man at the end Beethoven ? " 

"No: that's the editor of the *Freie Presse.' Maybe the 
man next to him is." 

" Why, you ought to know him ! You have lived here long 
enough." 

*' I would know him if I was to see him ; but I don't think 
he's up there, anyhow." 

The person from the country then turned around to me, and 
asked me which was Beethoven. I pointed out a man who I 
afterwards learned was Col. Haefflin, a public-spirited butcher, 
who looks very like Beethoven at a distance. I may mention, 
that, the greater the distance, the more striking the resem- 
blance. Anyhow, the young man was satisfied. I was going 
to point out Mozart, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, and 
some of the local members of the press, when the firmament 
was again rolled up, and Mr. Charles H. Mueller, said to be 
the best tenor in town, came forward. The tenor of his solo 
was " Klockengeleute," which means, in English, "Chimes." 
Mr. Mueller sang with much feeling. The peasant said to his 
friend, " Let's take a stroll." They only took a short stroll. 
When they came baclc yau could almost feel the beer in the 
air. I fell into a revery while studying a painting on the wall 
to the right of the stage. It represented a young man in flow- 
ing robes. From the fact, that, except the flowing robes, the 
figure did not seem to have many clothes, I thought perhaps it 
was a representation of the press. The figure was holding on 
to a lyre with both hands, — cumulative evidence that the gen- 
ius of the press was meant ; and, when I turned to look at the 
figure, behold ! its legs were gone. There was a square open- 
ing where the legs used to be. 

Just then the performers came through the opening ; and, 
when the door was closed, there were the lesrs back ao:ain 
where they ought to be. It is a solemn fact, that the legs 
are painted on the door. When the door is a little ajar, the 
supposed reporter looks as if he were hurrying home from a 
Fourth-of-July procession, rather tangled up. 

I believe the singinof was Gfood : I do not know. I did not 



THE POORHOUSE. — PROGRESS. 367 

understand it. A good deal of the singing was of the sky- 
rocket style, and I do not like that kind. The doctor asked 
me if I understood the chorus that I applauded so much. I 
told him the old anecdote about Bridget and the sermon. 
^' What an illigant sermon Father O'Doud preached this morn- 
ing!" — ''Did you understand it, Bridget.'^" asked her em- 
ployer. " Faith, sur, wud I have the assurance t " 

We visited the county poorhouse. It is near the water- 
works, about two miles from town. The rooms are very neat 
and clean, and the institution is well managed. It is more, 
however, in the nature of an insane^asylum than a poorhouse, 
there being no less than fourteen idiots there when we visited 
the institution, — being two more than it takes to try a man for 
murder. The lunatics make themselves useful. Some of them 
were cutting wood when we saw them. I tried to cut wood 
once ; but I was not very successful, and the axe got caught in 
the clothes-line. Ever since I want jio better evidence of a 
man's insanity than to see him cutting wood. 

In San Antonio progress is visible on every hand. In the 
houses, the streets, the people, the amusements, and the reli- 
gious observances, the old is to be seen gradually merging into 
the new. In 1849 ^^e city could only boast of two policemen : 
now they are to be seen in every saloon. Thirty years ago 
San Antonio was a Mexican city. All the goods that were 
sold in San Antonio were hauled up from the coast on uncouth 
vehicles called carretas. The two wheels of these carts were 
made of wood, solid, and without spokes. Some of them had 
not a nail or a piece of metal in them ; and, when the thing 
was in motion, the creaking of the wheels made the roar of a 
hand-organ, or the tintinnabulations of a boiler-foundry, seem 
melodious lullabies. The oxen, instead of being reminded of 
their obligations with a whip, were persuaded with a spike at 
the end of a long pole. Gradually the loud, explosive whip, 
and the hearty expletive of the American, have taken the place 
of the stiletto-like goad of the descendant of Cortez and Monte- 
zuma ; and now old-fashioned Mexican carts, with wooden 
wheels, are comparatively scarce. 



.68 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 












XCEPT driv- 
i n g freight- 
wagons, the 
only real, 
steady, ac- 
tive work the 
Mexicans 
ever allowed 
themselves 
to be caught 

--' ' ' at, was cele- 

brating the saints' days. The celebration was decidedly unique. 
After devoutly attending church, the fast young men would 
mount their ponies, and spend the rest of the day in galloping 
through the streets, and uttering a succession of shrieks, while 
the profanum vzilgtcs, who did not own horses, stood on the 
corners and cheered. 

Having much curiosity to know how it was that the saints' 
days came to be celebrated in this demonstrative manner, I 
made frequent inquiry, but, for a long time, could get no clew 
to the mystery. The only explanation I ever got was, that 
such had always been the custom. An old but otherwise reli- 
able mhabitant told me that he was one of the first Americans 
who visited San Antonio, and that, when he came, there was 



A DEVICE OF THE EARLY MISSIONARIES. 369 

an oil painting over the altar of the old church. The painting 
represented St. Anthony, dressed and painted like a Comanche 
chief, mounted on a pony, a halo about his head, armed with a 
bow and arrows, and pursuing a buffalo over the prairie. This 
was probably a device of the early missionaries, who thus 
sought to insidiously instil Christian principles into the In- 
dian after the manner of the missionaries in China, who repre- 
sented the Saviour of mankind in the guise of a Mandarin. 
The Indians, supposing St. Anthony to be a bona fide Coman- 




•«^-' <^sO^^^^^. >'-'■ ~yh.,mA 






"/-i- 



v<^^V---. /■ 



**? ^/^>->^ 



'•%^^' 



FROM OIL PAINTING OF ST ANTHONY IN SAN ANTONIO CHURCH. 



che, and a major-general among the saints, celebrated the day 
set apart in his honor, and eventually all the saints' days, by 
riding through the streets at the same break-neck speed that 
St. Anthony seemed to enjoy in the oil painting. 

Of late years the wild riding has entirely disappeared ; owing 
to the enactment of a city ordinance, that placed it under the 
head of disorderly conduct, with an appropriate fine. Now the 
Mexicans have reformed entirely, and spend saints' days and 
sabbath evenings like Christian gentlemen, in the back-rooms 
of the saloons. 
24 



370 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

It was only by slow degrees that the religious custom of 
celebrating the saints' days by vociferous equestrianism died 
out. No serious objection was raised at first by the American 
population of San Antonio to this primitive form of Christianity 
practised by the natives. The Americans are proverbially tol- 
erant in religious matters, and in this case their numerical 
inferiority would have made it decidedly unhealthy for them 
to be otherwise. There was, of course, no wide-spread re- 
joicing among the Americans at having their slumbers broken 
into every fifteen minutes, three nights out of four, by the 
clatter of horses' hoofs, and the demoniacal yells of the drunken 
Mexicans. The Americans said among themselves, "This is 
their mode of worshipping God, and it would be unjust in us 
to interfere until we have a majority in the city council. Let 
us be tolerant, and respect their sincerity, until we have the 
drop on them." 

What gave vitality and length of days to this peculiar form 
of worship was the fact, that, during election-times, candidates 
in pursuit of the Mexican vote would join in the procession ; 
and nothing was more common than to see the prospective 
county officers — genuine Caucasians, with red heads, and 
noses to match — splashing through the mud, leading a herd 
of tatterdemalions, and yelling, *' Hurrah for Our Lady of 
Gaudaloupe ! " or whoever the saint of the day might be. 

Gradually, however, the primitive simplicity of this mode of 
worship became corrupted. Abuses crept in. The Mexican 
was satisfied with riding over dogs during the day, and keep- 
ing quiet citizens awake during the night. But soon part of 
the American ritual was grafted on their original form of wor- 
ship, such as riding into bar-rooms, shooting out the lights, and 
perforating the barkeeper. At last people devoid of religious 
convictions began to shake their heads ; and when finally a 
stranger named McGinnis, while celebrating St. Patrick's Day, 
shot and seriously wounded a popular saloon-keeper, a justice 
of the peace, at the risk of losing the Mexican vote, had McGin- 
nis arrested. The saloon-keeper subsequently dying from his 
injuries, the unfortunate Celt, who thought he was making him- 
self popular by pandering to the customs of the country, was 



''NO SHOOTING ALOUD: 



71 



made to feel the majesty of the law. He was fined for dis- 
charging fire-arms within the city limits. Such was society 
in its primitive form. Civilization has continued its onward 
march, until, at the present time, the man who, in Texas, im- 
brues his hands in the blood of his fellow-man is no longer 
punished by the mockery of a fine, but is made to feel the 




HURRAH FOR OUR LADY OF GUADALOUPE! 



Aiagnitude of his crime by being turned out into the cold, un- 
feeling world, branded with the stigma of insanity. 

It was a long time before the people could be broken of the 
habit of shooting at signs that hung across the street. The 
old citizens of San Antonio remember the fusillade that used 
to rage with intense fury all day long, on such days as Christ- 



Zl'^ 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



mas and New- Year's Day. The first attempt to check the 
practice was in 1849. ^ notice was hung up over Commerce- 
street Bridge, forbidding the discharge of fire-arms. The effort 

^ to interfere 

with the inno- 
cent pastime 
of the people 
was not at first 
attended with 
any flattering 
degree of suc- 
cess. On the 
Fourth of July 
many of the in- 
habitants were 
not in a condi- 
tion to make 
bull's eyes. 
Some idea of 
the inaccuracy 
of their target- 
practice may 
be obtained 
from an old da- 
guerrotype of the sign before referred to, as it appeared on the 
morning of the 5th of July, 1849. 

Some of the old city ordinances of San Antonio, when under 
Spanish rule, I consider of sufificient interest to justify me in 
inserting a translation here : — 




VARIOUS MUNICIPAL REGULATIONS AND 
FOR SAN ANTONIO IN 1823. 



ORDINANCES 



Considering the deplorable state of society prevailing in this city, the 
want of cleanliness of the streets and plazas, the filthiness of the ditches, 
and ruinous condition of the bridges, etc., occasioned by a complete dis- 
regard of former regulations and ordinances : therefore, such abuses 
being highly injurious to public health, it has become of imperious 
necessity to issue a new regulation of police and good government, 



CITY ORDINANCES IN 1823. 373 

for the purpose of putting an end to such evils, and promoting the 
security and comfort of the citizens. 

Therefore the illustrious Ayuntamento has resolved and decreed the 
following provisions, the observance of which is rendered obligatory : — 

Every person who keeps hogs shall have them kept in pens. The 
owners of any such animals, found in the street, shall be fined one dollar. 

Any person wishing to give a ball shall give advice thereof to the 
alcalde of first vote, under penalty of forfeiting fifty cents. The musi- 
cians who shall play for such balls shall incur the same fine. 

Any person who shall leap over a fence without the authorization of 
the owner of the premises shall, besides making good the damage, be 
fined in a sum of six dollars. 

In view of a more perfect and strict execution of the present pro- 
visions, the illustrious Ayuntamento has been pleased to put the four 
wards of this city under the special care of the several regidores, as 
follows : to wit, for the ward of San Antonio de Valero, the Alcalde 
Vincente Gortare ; for the north ward, Don Luceano Navarro ; for the 
south ward, Don Francisco Thurtillos ; for the ward of Laredo, Juan 
Jose Maria Escalera. The illustrious Ayuntamento has further been 
pleased to appoint Don Jesus del Tory, Don Meguil Munos, Don Mel- 
chior Leal, and Don Francisco Bustilla, to act under the regidores in 
their respective wards, with the denomination of '' ward-commissioners." 

It shall be the duty of said commissioners to see that no vagrants, or 
people of bad life, introduce themselves into the wards. If such should 
happen, they shall inform the regidor of the fact, who will report the 
same to the constitutional alcaldes. 

The ward-commissioners, being considered the fathers of their wards, 
shall endeavor, without, however, penetrating into the houses, to settle 
and conciliate such domestic dissensions or quarrels as may come within 
their notice, except such as have a scandalous appearance. Regarding 
these, they will give advice to their respective regidores, and these to 
the alcaldes. 

In case of a conflagration, or any other calamity of the kind, the 
commissioners shall hasten to the spot, and organize such assistance as 
may be required. 

Any citizen who shall harbor a stranger in his house shall immediately 
inform the commissioner, at his respective ward, of the fact, stating the 
place where such person came from, the purpose of his travel, the names 
of his associates, etc. The commissioner shall report to the regidor, and 
he to the alcaldes. Any delinquent shall be fined ten dollars. 



374 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Servants wishing to pass from one master to another shall give fifteen 
days' notice, previous to leaving him, in order that he may secure the 
services of other persons. The servants may then look for another 
master, after having obtained of the former a paper signed by the 
regidor or commissioner of their respective wards, and stating the 
amount of their liabilities towards said former masters. 

Any person wishing to go out to hunt mustangs or cattle shall pre- 
viously advise the alcalde, and, on their return, produce to him such 
animals as they have captured, in order that the marks and brands 
thereof may be ascertained. Any infraction of this provision shall be 
punished by a fine of ten dollars. Any persons who shall go out hunt- 
ing without advice, and shall not exhibit the ears and brands of the ani- 
mals they may have killed in the fields, shall forfeit double the above 
specified amount. 

Given in the city of San Antonio de Bexar, the first day of February, 
1823. 

Jose Anto. Sacuedo. 
Gasper Flores. 

It seems to me that the penalties attached to these ordi- 
nances were not properly graded. A person could give a ball 
at his house, and only be fined fifty cents ; while it would seem, 
from the reading and punctuation of the hog ordinance, that 
the owner of a hog must not be found on the streets under a 
penalty of one dollar. 

It awakens painful emotions when we think of the ward- 
commissioners being required to '* conciliate domestic dissen- 
sions." We find no instructions given to the commissioner as 
to how he should act if the domestic dissenter refused to be 
conciliated, and turned on him with a club. 

Up to the year 1850, the great majority of the people being 
Catholic, religious processions were popular. The carrying in 
procession, from the church, of the last sacrament to a dying 
man, by surpliced priests chanting the litany, was very solemn 
and impressive, especially to the invalid himself. This custom 
has been discontinued of late years, but in former days nothing 
was more common. 

An American living near the church on the Plaza de las 
Islas had a remarkably intelligent parrot, that, by often hear- 



THE WICKED PARROT. 



75 



ing the doleful chant, had learned to imitate it exactly. The 
lamentations of Jeremiah were jovial madrigals compared to 



the funereal chant of the foreign bird 



Mexicans coming to 




'ORA PRO NOBIS! 



market would attract the attention of the parrot, and he would 
forthwith begin to chant in the whining voice of the trained eccle- 
siastic. The Mexicans, never suspecting that a bird was guilty 
of such blasphemous conduct, would with reverence doff their 



ol^ ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

sombreros, drop down on their knees, and wait patiently for 
the procession to pass. Fresh Mexicans would come along, 
and assume devout positions on the sidewalks, alongside of the 
first, until they impeded travel on the streets, and were dis- 
persed by the police. Even after the fraud was discovered, no 
Mexican ever passed the parrot without raising his hat, and 
making the sign of the cross. The bird was finally purchased 
by the proprietor of a Commerce-street saloon, and kept in a 
cage in a gambling-room in the back part of the premises. 
Ever and anon the Mexican blackleg would drop his cards, and 
gaze about with blanched cheek, as the familiar, sonorous chant, 
interspersed with mild frontier profanity, sounded over his head : 
" Ora pro nobis ! Doggone the luck ! Pater noster ! Keno ! " 
Almost every article of food used by the Mexicans has red 
pepper in it in some shape ; and not only Mexicans, but Ameri- 
cans, use pepper freely, either in its ground form, sprinkled 
over meat and vegetables, or in the pod, boiled in soup. The 
Mexicans call it chili. The well-known author, Mr. N. Web- 
ster, calls it Capsicum fmiescefis (Solanacea). When a stranger 
for the first time tastes a Mexican dish seasoned with Capsicum 
frutescens, he wants the fire-department called out at once. 

The reporter who dined with us called the red-pepper-pods 
on the table Texas strawberries, and tried to impose on the 
doctor, insisting that he should eat some of them with cream 
and sugar. Failing in this, he told the following : — 

'* In this quaint old Alamo. City it never rains but it pours. 
Week after week will drag itself along without there being any 
item more startling or unusual than a Mexican raid or a murder- 
trial. ^ The newspaper-man in search of live items will begin to 
despair of any thing happening worth reporting, when suddenly, 
inside of fifteen minutes, the entire community will be shaken 
from centre to circumference by a dog-fight, and the simulta- 
neous arrival of a wagon-load of El Paso onions, or some like 
event of national moment. Yesterday morning the gloom was 
chased out of my private office by the appearance of William 
McManus from the Calaveras. Perceiving that he was in great 
pam to impart something of importance, probably about our 
border complications, I inquired what was the matter. 



JAKE MULLINS. 



2>77 



" ^ There is no news out in the settlement, except that Jake 
Mullins has run off and left his sick old father. The old man 
is more'n eighty years of age, and crippled up right smart.' 

*' * How did it happen .^ ' 

" * Well, you see, the Mullinses is new-comers. They have 
come to our coun- 
try from Ohio; "^ 
and they are all 
green except Jake, 
who ought to be 
hung if they ketch 
him.' 

" ' Why, what 
did he do } ' 

"'What did he 
do ! Well, you 
know these little 
Mexican peppers, 
which are so hot 
that you have to 
put on two pairs of 
buckskin gloves, 
and wait for a frost, 
before you can 
pick them .'* He 
told his father 
they were Texas 
strawberries ; and 
the old man stored • 
away about a pint 
of 'em in his mouth 
before he found it out. But it didn't take him long after that. 
He learned right rapid for an old man.' 

" ' Didn't Jake know how hot they were V 

" ' Of course he knew it. He walked in sorter careless to 
where the old man was sitting in his chair, making out that he 
was eating them himself. He said, ** Ain't these Texas straw- 
berries delicious } They remind me of my old home." Then 




OLD MAN MULLINS. 



37^ ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

the old man's mouth watered, and Jake gave him a handful ; 
and it hasn't stopped watering since ; and it is all swelled, be- 
sides, until it looks like the toe of an old boot.' 

*' ' Wasn't Jake afraid to arouse his father's ire ? ' we wanted 
to know. 

"'You see, Jake knew the old man was a good Christian, and 
that, on account of the rheumatiz, he couldn't run : so he 
thought he was safe.' 

"'How did it turn out.?' 

" ' Well, you couldn't expect him to say much, anyhow, with 
that mouth, particularly as it was busy getting rid of them 
peppers ; but what he did say was no camp-meeting talk. You 
couldn't put it into your family paper, no ways. And, as for his 
legs, he worked them like they were new ones.' 

" * Did he use personal violence t ' 

" * Oh, no ! of course not. He ran about with the Texas 
strawberries and the cuss-words dropping out of his mouth, 
hunting for the shotgun. You see, Jake peppered him, and he 
naturally wanted to pepper Jake. He had to put up with an 
axe. He followed Jake around for an hour ; but Jake got away, 
and hasn't been heard of since. The old man is very much 
cast down, because he fears Jake won't come back. He feels 
that he was too hasty, and that he should have kept quiet till 
he got Jake. off his guard. He spends his time squatting down 
by the fence-corner with his shotgun, sighing for his boy to 
come back.' " 



ADELS VEREIN. 



379 




CHAFfER XXIX. 

Braunfels is a town 
thirty miles from San 
Antonio, inhabited 
altogether by Ger- 
mans. The popula- 
tion is about four 
thousand. The town 
has a very romantic 
and strange history. 
= We went over to 
New Braunfels in the 
stage-coach from San 
Antonio, the report- 
er accompanying us. 
He was writing up the his- 
':"- ■••"•• '"^^ ^ '-^ tory of the place. I bor- 

T.> ^^ -- " .rowed some of his history, and 

.: . -; founditreliable — as history goes. 

In the spring of Anno Domini 1844, 
an association" for the promotion of German immigration to 
Texas was formed in the city of Mainz, Germany. The associa- 
tion was composed exclusively of noblemen, who m their socia 
relations were painfully exclusive. It was called the Adds 
Verein (''Noblemen's Association"). Every member was af- 



38o 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



flicted, among other things, with a pedigree. They did nothing 
for a living ; and, as a general thing, it took tfiem all day to do 
it. Among the members were the following : the Duke of 
Nassau, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, the Duke of Coburg- 
Gotha, Prince Frederick of Prussia, the Langraf of Hesse- 
Homburg, the Prince of Schwarzbiirg-Rudolstadt, the Prince 
Moritz of Nassau, the Prince of Leiningen, the Prince of New 
Weid, the Prince Solms-Braunfels, the Count of New-Leinin- 
gen-Westerburg, the Count Frederick of Alt-Leiningen-West- 
erburg, the Count Ysenburg-Meerholz, Count Hatzfeldt, Count 

Kniphausen, Count Renesse, 
Count Lilienburg, Count Col- 
loredo - Mannsfeldt, and the 
Count Carl of Castell. 

The question naturally 
arises. Why should these pam- 
pered sons of luxury suddenly 
become so absorbed in immi- 
gration schemes } Western 
Texas, at that time, was in 
the almost undisturbed pos- 
session of the coyote, the buf- 
falo, and the Indian. It seems 
hard to understand why the 
Adels Ve7'ein were desirous of 
populating Texas. There was 
a large-sized bug under the 
Teutonic chip. The bug was no less a personage than Lord 
Palmerston, prime-minister of England. He was the man who 
pulled the wires, and set all the little German counts and 
dukes to dancing. In one way it was all the same to Lord 
Palmerston, whether the wilds of Texas were settled by Indians 
or Germans ; but in another light he felt as much mterest m 
the German settlements in Texas as if he owned lands out 
there that distressed him to pay taxes on. The area of the 
United States was already much larger than Lord Palmerston 
cared that it should be ; and he determined, if possible, to pre- 
vent that country from extending any farther in the direction 




THE REPORTER. 



LORD PALMERSTON'S WILES. 38 1 

of Mexico. Texas was then a republic : she thought it would 
be a judicious thing to get a colony of Germans between the 
United States and Mexico. The English policy was to pre- 
vent, under all circumstances and at whatever cost, the an- 
nexation of Texas to the United States. Lord Palmerston 
could have sent Englishmen out to Texas ; but they were more 
useful at home, where they paid taxes. The monkey could 
have pulled the chestnuts out of the fire himself, but that would 
have looked like a personal slight to the cat. Possibly I do the 
Fritznoodle Vereins injustice, when I suggest that they were 
cat's-paws of Lord Palmerston. They may have expected to 
acquire large principalities in Texas, and ultimately to have 
annexed Germany to the new country. Apparently this was 
perfectly feasible ; for at that time Texas had hardly one hundred 
thousand inhabitants who observed the proprieties, and did not 
daub chromos of the sun, moon, and stars over their nakedness. 
A sufficient number of German immigrants could be sent over 
to make German influence predominate, and thus prevent the 
United States from joining fences with Mexico. Letters writ- 
ten by Prince Solms-Braunfels, the representative in Texas of 
the A dels Verein, and a relative of the English royal family, 
show that this was one of the motives of the enterprise. 

Every male emigrant from Germany was promised one hun- 
dred and sixty acres of land, and to every family was promised 
twice as much. 

As before stated, the members of the Fritznoodle Verein 
were all of the blue-blood aristocracy of Germany. They actu- 
ally revelled in a wealth of cerulean gore. There was one thing 
they were quite positive of : and that was that man, properly 
speaking, began with the rank of baron ; all born below that 
rank belonged to an inferior order of creation. 

No further proof was needed of the unfitness of the Fritz- 
noodle family for the successful transaction of business ; but, 
nevertheless, they soon began to furnish additional and over- 
whelming evidence of it. The association purchased four hun- 
dred and fifty square miles of land in Western Texas, from a 
Frenchman named Bourgeois d'Orvanne, to whom it did not 
belong. Instead of buying land, they themselves were sold, 



382 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

which is usually the case when any high-born aristocrat under- 
takes to trade with persons destitute of blood. This French- 
man was a man of low degree, without rank, and having no title 
— to the land he sold the association. The Fritznoodles did not 
find out that they had been swindled until the advance guard 
of the immigrants — one hundred and fifty families — had ar- 
rived in Galveston. 

The next sacred duty devolving on Prince Solms-Braunfels, 
who was the agent and representative of the Adels Verein in 
Texas, was to discover some other man who had land to sell. 
He had to be in a hurry about finding a fresh rascal, as the im- 
migrants at Galveston were beginning to develop some disloyal 
disgust. They could not well stay where they were, and they 
did not know any more than did Prince Solms-Braunfels where 
to go. The prince soon found another unavailable piece of 
land to buy. There were two Germans in Texas, Fisher and 
Miller, who had a contract with the Republic of Texas by 
which they were to obtain a large tract of land on the Llano 
River, on condition that they would settle six thousand immi- 
grants on the lands. Prince Solms bought the land. After he 
had paid twelve thousand guldens to Fisher and Miller, he con- 
ceived a bright idea : probably it was suggested to him by some 
impatient immigrant. The idea was to find out where the 
newly acquired Eldorado was situated. He learned that the 
land was beautifully located on the Llano River, some four 
hundred miles from Galveston. This distance was a very for- 
tunate circumstance ; as it prevented the Indians, in whose 
undisputed possession the land was, from killing and scalping 
the legal owners. The preliminary business of removing the 
Indians should have been attended to by Fisher and Miller ; 
but these two worthies found it easier and more remunerative 
to plunder the German immigrants than to interfere with a 
lot of healthy Comanches. From what I can learn, the heads 
of Fisher and Miller were entirely flat on top. In all, they 
captured eighteen thousand dollars from the Fritznoodle Ve- 
rein. When Solms bought the land, he evidently did not intend 
the purchase to include the Indians, for he made no attempt to 
dispose of them. Owing to the activity and enterprise of the 



PRINCE SOLMS-BRAUNFELS IN TEXAS. 383 

Comanches, and other tribes, in resenting intrusion, it was a 
very difficult matter to find a live man who had seen the land 
in question. After the Indians got through with an explorer, 
he was not disposed to be communicative, and was completely 
unfitted to describe scenery. 

According to the statements of Fisher and Miller, the land 
they sold was a perfect paradise, abounding in rich mines of 
gold and silver, having an Italian climate, and all kinds of 
tropical fruits. Game was also very abundant. All the Ger- 
man immigrant would have to do, after building his humble 
cabin on the bank of a babbling brook, would be to cast his 
line into the stream, and pull up a forty-pound salmon. Drop- 
ping his rod, he would seize his trusty yaeger, and, firing at 
random, bring down a stately buck or ponderous buffalo. And 
thus it would be all day long, — jerk! up comes a fish: bang! 
down goes a deer, — his wife and little ones swinging in their 
hammocks, lulled to sleep by the gentle Gulf-breeze sighing 
through the tree-tops ; and all around, as far as the eye could 
reach, nothing but oranges and bananas, with a sprinkling of 
lofty palm-trees to inspire poetic thought. 

The fact is, the German immigrant of that day had a very 
similar idea of the Llano country to what the English immi- 
grant of to-day has of South-western Texas. The charges of 
exaggeration made against Fisher and Miller in the German 
papers in 1844-45 ^.re bewilderingly similar to those made in the 
English papers to-day against some Texas immigrant agents. 

The new purchase was one hundred miles from the habita- 
tion of any white man, — an unpleasant prospect to men who 
were not in the habit of missing their meals, and who were 
accustomed to spend their evenings in social intercourse in 
cosey beer-saloons. 

Finally Prince Solms bought a tract of land between the 
Guadaloupe and Comal Rivers, which was to serve as a half- 
way station between the coast and the lands of the association 
on the Llano. This settlement was called New Braunfels. 
The land on which the present town of New Braunfels is situ- 
ated has been in litigation for a number of years. Prince 
Solms, realizing that he did not thoroughly understand the Texas 



384 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

land business, and that managing the affairs of a colony was not 
his forte, resigned his position, and returned to Germany. 

The facts in the following sketch of Prince Solms were 
translated from the ** Anzeger des Westens " by the reporter : — 
Prince Solms-Braunfels was a chivalrous young man, of pre- 
possessing appearance and engaging manners, friendly and 
affable in his intercourse with the colonists, and consequently 
much liked by them. .The idea of conquering Texas, even if he 
had to accomplish it with the sword, in order to advance the in- 
terests of his cousin, as he called Queen Victoria, was constantly 
before him, and gave rise to many ludicrous scenes. 

It is very natural that there should be a great many comic 
interviews between a prince of the royal blood, brought up to 
regard himself as of a superior race, endowed with all the privi- 
leges of an hereditary aristoc- 
racy, and the American settlers, 
with their pride of being self- 
made men, and their utter disre- 
gard for the titles and preten- 




li'Vj) ^Mf^\\ , sions of royalty; and hence 
U^^jjr y . '; there are hundreds of 



amusmg 



iA .^^f^is^ i- >' anecdotes of conversations that 
'ji.^^ ^^ _ _ . the prince had with native 

Americans. 

The total absence of any 
thing like deference, which was 
observed wherever he went, not- 
withstanding it was well known 
that the blood of a long line of 
princes flowed in his veins, did 
PRINCE SOLMS SEALING A DEED. HOt plcasc him I and whcn on 

one occasion, at a dinner, a very 
much elongated specimen of an American farmer, who was the 
proprietor of sixty acres of land and two negroes, in reply to 
some of the prince's high-strung rhapsodies, answered bluntly 
that in this free country every citizen was a king, he lost all 
taste for republics. When he had occasion to sign deeds, and 
other documents of importance, he did so with the seal of his 




THE PRINCE'S BODY-GUARD. 385 

coat-of-arms on the hilt of his sword (he never went out with- 
out his sword) ; and to him it was incomprehensible why the 
Americans present laughed. He thought it was a very impos- 
ing act to draw his glittering blade from the scabbard, turn it 
with a bold flourish, and bring the golden seal on the pommel 
down on the wafer. 

After he had established his headquarters at the Sophienburg, 
in the settlement of New Braunfels, he organized a body-guard, 
composed of the sturdy young men of the neighborhood, not 
only for personal protection, but also to be used against the 
Indians. His principal object was to form the nucleus of the 
army he proposed to raise. There, however, could not have 
been much discipline among the troops, which were commanded 
by Baron von Wrede. In illustration of this assumption, we 
have the following anecdote : — 

It was the custom of the prince to hold reviews of this com- 
pany at Sophienburg. On one such occasion it began to rain, 
whereupon the company broke ranks, and retired in disorder to 
their homes. They went and returned not. All attempt to 
induce them to do so failed, notwithstanding the eloquent pro- 
fanity of the officers in command. Rigid with astonishment, 
the prince gazed at his retreating body-guard, and then upon his 
adjutant, their commander; and at last, with disgust and con- 
tempt in every tone of his voice, he thundered forth, *'Herr 
von Wrede, is that my army .'* " 

Shortly afterwards this army broke out in open rebellion ; 
and when, instead of the black and yellow flag, the ensign of 
the prince's house, they ran up the Lone Star banner of the 
Texas republic, he began to suspect that there was not much to 
be done in the way of conquests with troops of that character. 

Baron Otto von Meusebach succeeded Prince Solms-Braun- 
fels in the management of the affairs of the association. He 
was a thorough business man, of heavy calibre, and much better 
suited to the position than Prince Solms. Baron Meusebach 
arrived in the summer of 1845. He saw that it was impossible 
to settle his people on the western lands of the association. 
He founded another settlement, about seventy miles west of 
New Braunfels, and named it Fredericksburg in honor of Prince 
25 



3^^ 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Frederick of Prussia. (Fredericksburg is now a town of sev- 
eral hundred inhabitants ; and all but two families are German, 
or of German descent.) While Baron von Meusebach was 
busy getting his colonies in order, the Adels Verei7t sent out 
nearly four thousand persons, in sailing-ships, to Texas. The 




" HERR VON WREDE, IS THAT MY ARMY?" 



association made no provision for these people after reaching 
Texas. Von Meusebach was not furnished with means ; and, 
being unable to do any thing for the immigrants, he had to 
leave them to their fate. In the spring of 1846 more than 
three thousand of these immigrants had congregated on the 
coast of Indianola. They were almost entirely without means 
of subsistence, and there was no way to transport them to the 



FRITZNOODLE'S MISMANAGEMENT. 387 

German settlements at New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. 
They lived in tents, and in holes dug in the ground. For 
weeks the rain came down in torrents, and drove them from 
their subterranean abodes, and destroyed much of their worldly 
possessions. The American settlers helped them, but the 
Americans had not much themselves. Some food was received 
from Galveston, but not enough to feed such a vast number of 
hungry, starving people. Fish, wild duck, and other game were 
abundant, and prevented an absolute famine. A malignant fever 
broke out, and hundreds died of it. The survivors were just 
able to scratch shallow holes, and bury the dead. The wolves 
at night completed the obsequies. An occasional teamster came 
along, and was induced to carry a few of the immigrants to the 
New Braunfels settlement. Some started there on foot ; leaving 
not only their property, but their sick and dying relatives, be- 
hind them. Most of these died on the way. It has been esti- 
mated, that, of about five thousand immigrants who arrived in 
Texas during two years, only fifteen hundred reached the Ger- 
man settlements. The others died miserable deaths, caused by 
fever, starvation, exposure, and Fritznoodle mismanagement. 

Those who reached the settlement brought the fever with 
them, and for some time it seemed as if the whole colony was 
doomed to annihilation. But the Germans are tenacious of 
life. The immigrants went to work, relied on themselves 
alone, made the best of their surroundings, and eventually 
flourished and prospered beyond their most sanguine antici- 
pations. Thus began and ended the most extraordinary colo- 
nization scheme known in history. The result has been 
far different from what the German nobles expected. They 
thought to build up an empire that would stand a barrier 
between the United States and Mexico. They failed, but 
Texas gained some of the most industrious and valuable pio- 
neers and citizens in the world. One of those Adels Verein 
immigrants was, a year or two ago, carried from the national 
capital to his grave in Texas ; and seldom has there been seen 
in the United States a more magnificent pageant than that 
which followed and did honor to the remains of the Hon. Gus- 
tav Schleicher, congressman from Texas. 



;88 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 




CHAPTER XXX. 

TO New Braunfels on the stage, I had a 
seat on the box with the driver : the doc- 
tor and the reporter were on the roof be- 
hind. The stage-driver was a desperado- 
like man, with a dyed mustache and a 
sarcastic wink. He evidently was full of 
information and instructive conversation, 
but seemed as if he hated to part with 
any of it : it had to be seduced out of 
him gradually. He spoke in short sen- 
tences, and never enlarged upon the sub- 
ject. When he addressed his horses, it 
was in an explosive and reproachful way : 
"Pete! Jim ! g'lang ! " 
*' Good team you drive." 
"Tolerable." 

" Been on the road long } " 
" Right smart." 
" Ever been stopped by the road-agents on this line t " 
" Now you're talkin'." 

"Were you on the stage that was robbed last year, when two 
robbers made nine passengers hold up their hands ? " 

"Oh, no! I wasn't neither! and I didn't hold up my hands 
with the rest. You wouldn't if you had been there. Oh, 
no!" 

This he said ; and, when he said it, he flipped a fly off Pete's 
shoulder, and winked one of his indescribable winks. He never 
winked at any person in particular, but included his horses, the 
road, the trees, and the surrounding scenery generally. 




THE START. 



A STAGE-ROBBERY. 3^9 

The doctor, who has the credit of being very brave at long 
range, said he would like to see any stage-robber make him 
hold up his hands if he were armed. 

"So would I," said the driver. 

"The idea," continued the doctor, "of nine men, two of them 
beino- United-States soldiers, standing in a row by the wayside, 
with^heir hands above their heads, and their arms spread out 
like railroad-signals ! It's absurd." 

" It's all very well to talk that way when the robbers are not 
around," said the reporter; "but what are you going to do 
when a couple of men step out from behind a tree, and get the 
drop on you before you have time to reach for your fire-arms .? 
Why, you hold up your hands at once if you have got any 
sense. It is true, that if eight or nine men resisted two, and 
fired on them, the robbers would, no doubt, be routed : but blood 
would be shed among the passengers; and few men care to take 
the risk for the sake of saving a gold watch, or the few dollars 
they may have in their pockets." 

"So you would hold up your hands, would you.?" said the 

doctor. 

" I have done it. I have held them up until my suspenders 
gave way," said the reporter; "and I didn't feel like a coward 

either." 

" Let us have all the heart-rending details," said the doctor. 
At this request, the reporter cleared his throat, and began as 

follows : — 

"There were four of us in the stage, and we had just got to 
the San-Saba bottom. It was quite cold, and the sides of the 
stao-e were all buttoned down. It was as dark as the mside of 
a box of blacking, when somebody called out, ' Halt ! ' and the 
stage came to a stand, when one of us called out, ' Is this the 
stage-stand ? ' The driver spoke up and said, ' No : this is Six- 
sho'^oter post-office.' Then we heard a voice saying, 'You fel- 
lers inside there, get out, one at a time ; and the first one that 
comes out with a pistol is gwine ter have the top of his head 
blowed off. Alight, strangers, one at a time, keerfully.' 

"When we heard this, we knew the stage was going to be 
robbed of its contents ; so we began hiding our valuables. 



390 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



Some stuffed money into their boots, others into the cushions 
of the stage. The first man who got out was a Mr. Marsh. 
He hadn't been in the State long, and had no experience with 

stage - robbers ; 
but he got out 
all the same. 
On alighting 
from the stage, 
he found a re. 
ception commit- 
tee waiting to 
take his baggage 
from him. There 
were two men 
dressed in blue 
overcoats, with 
slouched ranger 
hats on, and 
with their pants 
stuffed in their 
boots. One was a tall man, 
six feet high, rather heavy 
built. The other was a 
small man, about five feet 
five inches, would weigh 
about a hundred and twenty- 
five pounds, and had a dark 
complexion. The tall man 
held a six-shooter in each 
hand (a full hand is a safe 
thing to call on) ; while the 
little fellow only had one 
pistol drawn, he using the 
other hand as a contribution- 
box. Marsh had hidden most of his money in his shoes, but 
he let the little fellow have ten dollars. He saved the money 
After Marsh had made his contribution, he was 
The next man who was ordered 




A STAGE-ROBBERY. 



in his shoes. 



told to go back into the stage 



A STAGE-ROBBERY, 39T 

out was myself. The large robber had the two pistols pointing 
at me, while the little one only aimed one in my direction. I 
liked the little one best. He asked my name, and I told him. 
I asked him what his name was, and he turned it off by saying 
that it was none of my business. I told him I was travel- 
ling for a San Antonio leather-house, to which he replied that 
that was not going to save my hide. I had put my watch in- 
side of my vest for fear I might lose it, and I stuffed a few 
dollars in my boots. I handed him four or five dollars. He 
took that ; but he failed to find seven hundred dollars that I had 
— I had them several years ago before I went into the news- 
paper business. 

'' 'Turn them cussed pockets inside out,' said the leader. 

''Whenever a gentleman speaks politely to me, and wants a 
favor done, I'm always willing to go out of my way to accom- 
modate him : so I turned the pockets inside out, and produced 
about ten dollars more that I had overlooked in the excitement 
of the moment. When he saw the money, the robber shook 
his head, and said that it grieved him to see a young man take 
to lying. If all young men did that way, what would become 
of the country t He then asked me to lend him my rings to 
remember me by. I told him one of the rings didn't belong to 
me, and the other was an old family relic. He didn't take the 
rings. I climbed back into the stage, and told Gus Mueller, 
who travels for B. Oppenheimer & Co., that there was a gentle- 
man outside waiting to converse with him on business. 

" Gus Mueller had hidden ten dollars in the lining of the 
stage ; but they took his pocket-book, with five dollars and a 
check. This was about the only check they received during 
the whole performance. They didn't search the persons of any 
of us. They examined one pistol, but said it was a Rem- 
ington, and didn't suit them. After they had cross-examined 
Mueller, they told him to go back into the stage. They theri 
requested the driver to throw down the bag with the registered 
letters, which he did. When it came to distributing the mail, 
those fellows beat the post-office clerks. They took the regis- 
tered packages. We thought we were over our troubles, but 
in this we were mistaken. After they had held a caucus, the 



392 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

little one called out, ' Gentlemen, please be kind enough to 
alight, and go to the heads of the horses, and stand there with 

your backs turned for a few minutes ; and the first of you 

that turns his head around will get ' — 

'' He then went on to say that he believed there was some 

more money in the crowd, and some of us rascals had been 

stealing our money from him. He didn't seem to have too 
much confidence in us. One of the robbers borrowed a piece 
of candle from one of the stage-lanterns. While the big one 
shook his pistol at us, the little one assorted out our clothes in 
the vehicle, but without finding any of the hidden money. All 
our valises were opened and examined. There was quite a 
number of bottles of whiskey in the stage, which we had taken 
along in case of sickness ; but the robbers didn't take any." 

The reporter concluded by saying that that was the only 
stage-robbing experience he had ever had. 

The driver looked earnestly at the doctor, cracked his whip, and 
winked at all that part of the State west of the Colorado River. 

The doctor said that it was the duty of the State to stop 
stage-robberies ; but he failed to suggest any plan by which it 
could effect this object, and, desiring, evidently, to change the 
subject, he gave the conversation an agricultural turn. 

When we came within eight or ten miles of New Braunfels, 
we began to go through lanes. The whole country within a 
radius of ten miles, taking New Braunfels as the centre, is 
under cultivation. Here are the neatest farms, and the most 
thorough cultivation of the soil, to be found in Texas. Signs 
of German thrift are to be found on every hand. Fences are 
either of good, strong rails, or rock. Substantial houses, barns, 
and sheds are on every farm. Nothing is wasted : straw and 
fodder are saved ; the manure is scraped up, and used in or- 
chards ; and the stones are picked off the fields, and used in 
the improvement of the roads. When we passed a farm any- 
where in our Texas travels, we were never at a loss to know 
whether the owner was or was not a German. When we saw a 
farm with good fences, gates that swung clear of the ground, 
unused agricultural implements under a shed, a well in the 
yard, fruit-trees and a vegetable-patch behind the house, stacks 



PHLEGMATIC TEUTONS. 393 

of winter feed in the lot, and the doors and window-shutters 
painted, evidently by local artists, in different colors of widely- 
contrasting gorgeousness, — verdict unanimous, ** German." 

When we saw gates make tracks in the road when opened, 
or when the places where the gates should have been were 
filled with brush ; when the owner was lying asleep on the 
gallery, with his head on a saddle, with five dogs around him, 
or going out and in through the. chinks between the logs of 
which the walls of the house were built ; when we saw his 
saddle-horse, hobbled and sore-backed, picking up a living on 
the roadside ; a good site for a barn, without any barn on it ; a 
wagon in the front-yard, splitting under the heat of a semi- 
tropical sun, and a water-barrel in the wagon, showing that 
the family got their drinking-water from the creek, — verdict, 
without retiring, ''Old Texan." 

Between these extremes will be found farmers from other 
States and of other nationalities. 

As we entered the suburbs of New Braunfels, the stage- 
driver tightened his reins, pushed his hat back on his head, and 
gave a yell, that, in intensity and hideousness, I did not think 
was within the compass of the human voice. 

" What does this vocal demonstration mean } " said the doctor. 

** Just want to let the Dutch know I am coming," said 

the driver. 

A quiet, sleepy town is New Braunfels, — the business- 
houses all on one street. The residences, mostly one-story cot- 
tages surrounded by flowers, shade-trees, and cabbages, are 
scattered around in no very regular order. Robust and phleg- 
matic Teutons sit in the shade, and smoke enormous china 
pipes. Yellow-haired girls and matrons are to be seen through 
every open window ; and a most astonishing number of blue- 
eyed, tow-headed children are playing everywhere in sight. 
All the signs on the stores bear German names ; and the grocer 
does not call himself a grocer, but hides his occupation under 
the guise of a terrible German word that seems, when pro- 
nounced, as if it came up from the hollow of the speaker's 
legs. All around we hear the gutteral sounds of the German 
language, until I get a sore throat listening to it. 



394 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Down below the town, as we sat on the banks of the beauti- 
ful Comal River, and listened to the monotonous grind of the 
old mill-wheel, the somnolent sound of the water rippling over 
the weir, and, from among the vines on the other side, the 
words of one of the songs of Fatherland sung by an unseen 
German maiden, and sounding like a joyous echo, we were 
carried back in imagination to the long-ago, when we floated 
down the Rhine, and, in youthful ignorance, believed that life 
was a delightful romance. 

Returning to the hotel, we met a large, coarse, blustering 
fellow, evidently a native American, who had apparently been 

drinking. He was shouting 
in a loud voice. He said that 
a very small consideration or 
aggravation would induce 
him to 'Mick daylight out of 
every son of a gun of a Dutch- 
man in town." He became 
especially warlike when he 
spoke of one Schneider. He 
said he wanted some one to 
tie one of his hands behind 
his back, and then bring on 
Schneider. He stated that 
he would like to *' warm " the 
Dutchman for about two 
minutes, and then he spoke in harsh terms of Schneider's 
ancestry. As he proceeded with his harangue, a small, fat 
German, wearing a pair of spectacles, stepped up in front of 
him, and said, — 

''Vas you saying somedings apout Schneider.?" 

" Yes, I was, by ! and by ! I would like to handle 

the scoundrel for a few minutes, by ! But he knows 

better than to fool with me, by ! " 

The little German took off his spectacles, and laid them on 
a window-sill ; and then, so quick that you could hardly see the 
motion of his arm, he hit the profane man on the mouth, and 
felled him to the ground. When the man arose, wiped the 




'-^'■^SKt^ **""'*^'^''^'" — 



HE HAD BEEN SAYING "SOMEDINGS APOUT 
SCHNEIDER." 



"i)Or FELLOW TALKS APOUT SCHNEIDERS 395 

blood from his mouth, and propped up his front teeth, he rushed 
at the little man ; but. before he had time to strike a blow, he 
found himself again in the gutter. When he got up, his nose 
looked as if a wagon-wheel had passed over it. He wiped the 
battered ruin with his sleeve, and said to the German, — 

" Now, I don't want no fuss with you : so you had better not 
fool with me. I have nothing agin you ; but, if you don't drop 

it, you will get hurt." . , , , 

" I vas not much scared yet. Off you vas not tired already, 
I giffs you some more." And he struck at the big man, but 
mtssed him, as he dodged into a drug-store. 

While the little man was adjusting his spectacles on his 
nose a friend of his came along, and asked him what the row 
was kbout. " Nodings ; but dot fellow, he talks apout Schnei- 
der too much already." 

To the landlord I expressed my surprise at the temerity ot 

the small German attacking a man so much larger than himself. 

" I reckon he knew the mule." was the landlord s laconic 

answer. , 

It is an acknowledged fact that the Germans are the most 
law-abiding citizens in Texas. .Although they never let beer 
erow old or inform in their possession, yet. even on the most 
festive occasions, they seldom get drunk, and still more rarely 




quarrel I attended the German annual volksfest when I was 
in Houston. It was quite a jubilee, and a vast quantity of beer 
was consumed; but the only Germans whose names Inoticed 
as being before the recorder next morning were Patrick Maloney 
and Michael McSweeney. 



396 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

The New Braunfels people own a woollen-factory, — the only 
one in Texas, and probably the only one in the South. 

The Comal River is prepared to supply almost unlimited water- 
power. The country around can supply the wool and cotton ; 
and it is certain, that, sooner or later, New Braunfels will be a 
manufacturing city. 

A very large proportion of the inhabitants of Western Texas 
are Germans, or of German descent. They are a most indus- 
trious and desirable class of citizens. They have brought over 
all their old German pastimes and amusements, and working 
about fourteen hours a day is one of them. While the Texas- 
American has gradually succeeded in overcoming his aversion 
to lager-beer, his prejudice against working very hard in the 
field between meals still exists. The German from the old 
country could not stop working, even if he were to make every 
effort to do so. His ancestors for a thousand years have 
worked harder than people in this country have any idea of, 
and he has inherited the industrious disposition of his fore- 
fathers in his bones. His children born in the United States 
have not got it in such a malignant form : they only suffer 
from industry in a mild type. They can leave off work when- 
ever they feel like it. The next generation will probably im- 
bibe the prejudices of the natives, and refuse to do any thing 
like hard work, except on extraordinary occasions — at a bil- 
liard-table, or in a base-ball field. But the original German 
works as if his eternal salvation depended on it. In Germany, 
with the exception of the wealthy classes, it is either work or 
starve, with the odds slightly in favor of starving. It is almost 
impossible for a poor man in Germany to rise above the station 
he was born in. Any attempt to do so is regarded by the 
upper classes as an impertinence, and resented accordingly. 
In fact, it is contrary to law for a man to attempt to improve 
his condition. What is his condition for, if not that he should 
remain in it, at least until he dies } If, for instance, a man is 
born a peasant, his only chance to rise in life is to be blown up 
by a bombshell in fighting the king's enemies. If he is born 
poor, he remains poor. The poor man, by working hard day 
and night, and going without some of his meals, may be able 



FRITZ SCHIMMELPFENIG. 



397 



to hold his own in that station of life in which it has pleased 
Providence to call him, and the government to keep him. Now, 
when a man raised under these circumstances is transplanted 
to a fertile Texas prairie, where he is not required to support 
an emperor with his expensive family, and a standing army of 
a million beside himself, he falls right into the lap of wealth. 
'No matter what business he 
may go into, he is bound to 
succeed. By degrees he be- 
comes Americanized ; he 
becomes a man of influence, 
and is courted and flattered 
by pohticians — they cannot 
act without his views. In 
Germany the government 
managed to get along very 
well without his views. In 
America, prominent officials 
and great men sometimes 
shake hands, and converse 
familiarly with him. In the 
old country, the highest offi- 
cial that was ever familiar with 
him was the drill-sergeant, 
who punctuated his remarks 
with a ramrod, or the butt- 
end of a musket. He may 
have received other atten- 
tions (they were not of a 
character to make him for- 
get them), but he did not 
care to brag much of them 

afterward. Such, at least, were the experiences of Fritz Schim- 
melpfenig, whose acquaintance we made in San Antonio. Fritz 
had become naturalized. When there was some celebration 
connected with the Odd-Fellows' Lodge, of which he was a 
bright and shining light, Fritz would dazzle people with his 
regdia. There was nothing in his life in Germany similar to 







FRITZ SCHIMIVIELPFENIG. 



393 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

this, that he could remember. The only time that he had any- 
thing to do with a lodge there, was when he was lodged in 
jail for killing an imperial rabbit that was depredating in his 
father's field. His connection with the San Antonio Lodge 
gave him importance and influence in society. Notwithstand- 
ing all this, Fritz yearned to return to the old country, in the 
hope of enjoying life there, and at last of laying his bones in 
the old graveyard. His principal object, to tell the whole 
truth, was not so much to enjoy the peace and quiet of the 
village graveyard, as it was to humiliate the aristocracy, who 
had not recognized his merits as they should have done. So 
Fritz returned to his native village in grand style. He was 
dressed in broadcloth, and wore a heavy gold watch and chain. 
This was intended to awe, and, perhaps, partially paralyze, the 
aristocracy, if he got a fair chance at them, and at the same 
time to make his former townsmen of the peasant class envious. 
He arrived at Kirschvvappel in due time. As he had not 
telegraphed that he was coming, he was not surprised when he 
failed tQ. perceive any vast concourse of joyous burghers com- 
ing out with a brass band and garlands to greet him. He did 
expect, however, after his friends should recognize him, to be 
entirely surprised by a serenade, and was somewhat astonished 
that he was permitted to go to sleep at a hotel on the night of 
his arrival. He discovered that he was a perfect stranger. 
The only man who recognized him, and who seemed really glad 
to see him again, was the innkeeper, who produced an unpaid 
bill for two dollars' worth of beer, he owed in the days of his 
boyhood. Every thing looked small to him, and he looked 
small to everybody. The peasants did not rally around him as 
if he were a flag. They imagined his sole object in travelling 
all the way back across the water was to convince them how 
much better he was than they were. He showed a brutal in- 
difference to their sensitive feelings by wearing a big diamond 
breastpin, which they imagined was real. The fact that he 
used a pocket-handkerchief added fearfully to the smothering 
fire of indignation. He fared better, however, at the hands of 
the postmaster, the burgomaster, and some of the other village 
aristocracy, who forgave him for being a peasant originally. 



PARALYZING THE ARISTOCRACY. 



399 



The reason they cultivated him was the deUght they experi- 
enced in hstening to his tales of American life and manners, 
all of which they believed to be stupendous lies. He told 
them, that, on the previous Fourth of July, he rode at the head 
of the procession as grand marshal, which was a fact. They 
punched one another in the ribs, and said, "Let us see how big 
a lie he can tell if he is let alone." Fritz told of congressmen 
he had known and drank with ; and then they laughed, and 




FRITZ AND THE VILLAGE ARISTOCRACY IN GERMANY. 



said America was a wonderful country. " Doubtless, you are 
personally acquainted with the President," said the burgo- 
master. ,, 

" Certainly. I had quite a long talk with President Grant. 

''You offered him a cigar, didn't you .? " said one, who was 
anxious to see if there was any limit to Fritz's flights of men- 
dacity. 

*' I gave Gen. Grant a whole box of cigars when he was m 
San Antonio. He told me they were equal to^^those presented 
to him by the emperor when he was in Berlin." 



400 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Then they applauded and laughed as if they were crazy. 
The idea that Fritz should be hobnobbing with Gen. Grant, 
who was once the guest of Bismarck and William, was too pre- 
posterous. At last Fritz lost patience with them. They 
shocked him with their rude manners. He yearned to get 
back to his lodge, or' to sit in a jury-box and find somebody 
guilty of something. It was not very long before he discovered 
that the dear old vaterlaiid was too small and circumscribed to 
hold him. He said as much one day in a saloon, supplementing 
the same with the remark that the country would never amount 
to any thing until Germany became a republic. He had no 
cause to complain, after that, of not receiving any attention ; 
for he was arrested the same night, and confined in jail. 
After a long examination, he was sent to Berlin, where he was 
condemned to two years' imprisonment with hard labor. It 
required a great deal of red tape and persuasion, on the part of 
the American consul, to obtain his release. It was only by per- 
suading the authorities that Fritz was subject to periodic attacks 
of idiocy, that his release was obtained ; which was only granted 
on condition that he leave Germany within twenty-four hours. 
It is hardly necessary to say that Fritz did not linger around 
the old graveyard where he had expected to lay his bones. In 
fact, the one object of his life was now to get out of the ac- 
cursed country. So, taking his bones with him, he returned to 
San Antonio. 

Many of the original German settlers were men of the high- 
est education and culture. Some of these immigrants were in 
comfortable circumstances at home, but they could not stand 
the suffocating atmosphere of the Old-World despotism. 

It is difficult to praise the Germans of Western Texas too 
much. They have made the country what it is. They furnish 
a very small contingent to the criminal classes, while they pay 
a very heavy percentage of the taxes, altogether out of pro- 
portion to their numbers. They educate their children at their 
own expense when the State refuses to do it. They respect 
the rights of others, and rowdyism is almost unknown in the 
German settlements. 



THE RED-FACED MAN. 



401 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



ETURNING from New Braun- 
fels, we had five inside passen- 
gers in the stage, besides the 
reporter, the doctor, and my- 
self. All, with one exception, 
were Texas stockmen, dressed 
in the rough costume of their 
class. The exception was a red- 
faced man attached to an im- 
mense scarf-pin, and accompa- 
nied by a very tall stovepipe hat. 
The red-faced man was a drum- 
mer for a soap-manufacturing firm in St. Louis. 
He had only arrived in Texas the day before. 
His high opinion of his own smartness, and 
his faith in the superior qualities of his soap, 
were only equalled in extent by his credulity, 
and by his consuming thirst for information 
regarding Texas. He was brimful, and running over, with ques- 
tions. They came out of him in a torrent, only broken by an 
occasional severe jolt of the stage. The other passengers 
seemed to understand the character of the red-faced man at 
once, and answered his multitudinous questions regarding Mexi- 
cans, Indians, etc., with frugal economy in the matter of truth. 
They stared at his hat with such persistence, gazed at it with 
so much interest, and evidently spoke to each other of it^ m 
whispers, that the red-faced man was confused, but said nothing 
regarding what he supposed to be illustrative of Texas man- 
ners. After a while, a tall, lank stockman, in a blue shirt, and 
26 




a^a^^^/r'v' 



402 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

clothed as to his legs in goatskin overalls, leaned forward, and, 
putting his hand on the drummer's knee, said, — 

" You ain't going to San Antonio, are you, stranger ? " 

"Yes, sir, I'm going to San Antonio." 

The stockman looked around at his friends, and from one to 
the other, with a pained, pitying look. After a pause, another 
passenger addressed the red-faced man, and said, — 

" Did I understand you to say that you were going to San 
Antonio ? " 

" Yes, sir ; and, unless some accident happens, I expect to 
get there to-night." 

The stockmen whispered together, casting anxious glances 
all over the drummer's person, but did not pursue the subject. 

At the first station where we stopped to change horses, one 
of the hostlers, evidently posted by the gaunt man in the goat- 
skin pants, approached the soap-vender, and said, — 

" Excuse me, colonel, for making so free ; but you ain't going 
to San Antonio, are you 1 " 

" Yes, sir, I am. And, by George ! why shouldn't I go to 
San Antonio t " 

" O Lord ! " was all the man said by way of answer, as he 
braced himself up against a water-tank, and gazed compassion- 
ately on the red-faced man from St. Louis until the stage started. 

At the next stage-stand a negro surveyed him curiously, 
and, after walking around him twice, said, " Boss, ye ain't gwine 
to San Antonio, is yer, fur a fac' t " And, when he was an- 
swered in the affirmative, an Irish hostler was heard to exclaim, 
" Poor divil ! An' I don't suppose he has a frind to spake a 
word for him. They won't aven give him time to say a pater 
an* aveT 

The drummer climbed into the stage, feeling mystified, and 
was evidently beginning to get nervous. At this point a small 
boy climbed up to the window, as the stage started, singled the 
drummer out, and stared at him with that concentration of gaze 
that small boys apply to the elephant in a circus-procession, 
and began, " Mister, you ain't go " — A small boy rolled in 
the mud, and the soapman turned excitedly to his fellow-trav- 
ellers : — 



*'FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, EXPLAIN YOURSELF r' 403 

"Gentlemen, this is the most — What in thunder is the 
matter, anyhow? The people seem surprised because I'm 
going to San Antonio. Do gentlemen never travel in these 
old second-hand hearses ? " 

"No," replied the tall stockman : "it ain't that." 

" Well, what is it } You ain't afraid to go ? " 




"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, EXPLAIN YOURSELF!' 



"No, sir, Em not afraid. But, if I were you, I'd be — well, 
I'd be apprehensive of annoying contingencies." 

" For Heaven's sake, explain yourself ! " said the now thor- 
oughly frightened stranger. 

" Look here, partner, to cut the matter short, I wouldn't be 
in your boots, or rather your hat, and walk into the Main Plaza 
in San Antonio — not, sir, for the biggest ranch west of the 
Guadaloupe. Ten minutes after you reach the Alamo, your 
wife may be a widow. No, sir ! I would not give a sick calf 



404 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

for all the soap you will ever sell afterwards. Perhaps you do 
not understand me. You are a stranger here, and don't know 
the inhabitants. Now, let me tell you, as a friend, the San- 
Antonians are a simple, pastoral people. They were raised far 
away from railroads and the enervating influences of public 
schools. They are ignorant of guile and fashionable follies — 
not bigoted in any way ; but they are down on style. They 
will stand almost any thing but that. San Antonio is a land 
of liberty in all but one thing, — the people cannot bear the 
sight of a plug hat. They won't have 'em. A plug hat has 
the same effect on a San-Antonian that a red shawl has on a 
wild bull. You may go through the street barefooted, and no- 
body will notice you ; you may cavort around, dressed like a 
Chinee, and they won't much more than throw a rock or two 
at you ; you might even paint yourself, and go without clothes, 
and it wouldn't excite comment : but just walk into town with 
that hat on, and — The Lord help you ! A bull-fight wouldn't 
be a circumstance to it. I tell you, sir, the consequences of 
blind prejudice are terrible." 

The red-faced man was now almost in an hysterical condition. 
He offered to "swop even " with the driver, who wore a twenty- 
five-cent sombrero. The driver declined the trade. He then 
turned for advice to his fellow-travellers. He got no end of 
advice ; and to-day there are men alive to prove that they saw 
him alight from the stage in the Alamo Plaza, in San Antonio, 
and sneak into the Menger Hotel, with his hat concealed 'in a 
linen duster under his arm, and with a handkerchief tied around 
his head. 

San Antonio is the largest wool-and-hide market in Texas. 
More than a million pounds of wool are sold annually in San 
Antonio, and shipped to the Eastern States. There are no 
woollen-mills in San Antonio. One was started, but did not 
pay. The following account of it I found in a local paper : — 

HEAVY TRANSACTION IN WOOL. 

Two negroes in the employment of Berg & Brother recently went into 
business on their own account. They had very litde capital, but plenty of 
plu :k ; and some of their white friends encouraged them. They started on 



THE SENTIMENTAL TOURIST 



405 



Acquia Street a mill, combined with a wool-combing establishment. The 
first lot of wool they had to handle was dark wool, short staple ; and, what 
is quite singular, they raised it themselves on their own heads, in the place 
where the wool ought to grow. In handling this wool they not only used 
their own hands, but also cotton-hooks, clubs, etc. It is not thought the 
partnership will be a success, as the recorder's charges are too high to 
make it profitable. Our local authorities offer no encouragement whatever 
to home industry. But 
this shows what the A" 

negro can do in the <^ 
South if he tries. I 

I met a tourist 
at the hotel. He 
said the people of 
San Antonio had 
no sentiment, and 
they did not ap- 
preciate their ro- 
mantic surround- 
ings. His fi r s t 
day's experience 
in the city was so 
like mine that it 
refreshed me very 
much to hear him 
relate it. It seems 
that he arrived in 
the evening, and 

was up early next wooL-RAisiNG in san antonio. 

morning to muse 

at the shrine of Texas independence. He was of a poetic turn 
of mind, and longed to drop a tear or so at the local Ther- 
mopylae. 

In the middle of the Alamo Plaza there is a small stone build- 
ing, wonderfully plain and unattractive. The tourist saw this 
building ; and, observing people going in and out, he concluded 
that that was the veritable Thermopylae itself, and that the 
people were going to their morning weep. He accosted a 
native, and asked if the people went there to muse. 




4o6 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



"Muse — the devil!" was the heathen reply. "They go 
there for grub." 

" Is not that the sacred spot where the inhuman butchery of 
the heroic Texans took place t " 

"That's the Alamo Market ; but the butchery, stranger, where 
the killing is done, is a mile out of town. I want you to under- 
stand this is a city." 

Across the street he saw 
a sign, " Alamo Store." He 
stepped in, and asked the 
proprietor if Travis and 
Crockett had fallen near 
there. 

" I cannot say dot. I 
schoost comed back from 
de bost-office. Mebbe some 
one failed down vile I vash 
gone," was the discouraging 
reply. 

" I mean, is this the old 
Alamo, where Travis and 
his heroes fell t " 

A gleam of intelligence 
lighted up the features of 
the merchant. There was speculation in his eye, as he replied, 
" Dish ish de store vere dey buyed all dere ready-mate clodings, 
sheep for cash." And, before the bewildered pilgrim could 
reply, he had on an overcoat that fitted him " schoost like you 
vas porn mit it on." 

He came out with the overcoat on. The merchant wanted 
twenty-seven dollars, but came down two dollars and six bits, 
out of regard to the sacred memories brooding over the Alamo. 
Our pilgrim was not discouraged. Wherever he saw the im- 
mortal word Alamo, there he entered in. Having visited five 
Alamo saloons, two policemen conc^ucted him to the lock-up, 
which, by the irony of circumstances, was actually one of the 
rooms in the Alamo building itself. Otherwise he never would 
have found it, unless he had been aware of the fact that it was 




I 



A CLOSE FIT. 



RAINING EMPLOYEES AND TIN DINNER-PAILS. 407 



the only building in that part of town that did not have the 
word "Alamo " plastered on it as big as a circus-poster. 

The quartermaster's depot is about a mile from town — when 
the roads are not knee-deep in mud. There are quite a large 
number of employees who live in town, and who go to and from 
the depot in a large wagon, the propelling-power of which is 
two mules full of oats and energy. The wagon is usually 
crowded with as many employees as can get in. While in 
San Antonio, I often noticed that wagon dash past, and won- 
dered how long it would be before something unusual would 
have to be recorded. It was too full not to spill, sooner or 
later. One evening I saw the wagon, filled with employees, 
closely pur- 
suing the 
two mules 
near the de- 
pot. Each 
e m ployee 
wore a 
thoughtful 
expre s s i o n 
of counte- 
nance, not 
being pre- 
cisely unan- 
imous as to 
which was 
the proper 
thing to do, 
— to jump 
out, or stay 
in. The 

mules were not a bit tired, and there was 'really no occasion to 
get out and walk. All at once, one of the wheels struck what 
the San Antonio ''Express" calls an ''abruption," — a hole in 
the ground I suppose, or a stump; and just about that time, 
with singular unanimity, all hands concluded to relieve the 
poor, over-worked mules by getting out. For a minute and a 




RAINING EMPLOYEES AND TIN DINNER-PAILS. 



4o8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

half it rained employees and tin dinner-pails. Some went up 
so high that they afterwards stated they could see the mort- 
ages on the business-houses in Houston. Fortunately, nobody 
was killed. They could not do it again without a mortuary 
report as long as a man's arm. While the thus suddenly dis- 
charged employees were fondling sprained ankles, and wishing 
for more hands with which to rub places they could not reach 
conveniently, the mules rushed on, until they succeeded in 
finding something to smash up the wagon on. People living 
near where the wagon exploded against a tree said they would 
not need to buy any kindling-wood for the next six months. 
The mules did not sustain any injury whatever. 

While we were in San Antonio, the grand jury was in session. 
I do not like to say that they were a noble-looking body of men, 
but they might have looked worse. When we left, they had 
found some twenty indictments for horse-stealing, and had not 
begun on murders and other minor felonies. 

The San Antonio people say there is something wrong about 
the grand-jury system. They cannot understand why the horse- 
thief and incendiary find it profitable to move out West when 
the grand jury is in session, while the sewing-machine agent 
and the old veteran are still at large, and pursue their avocations 
without fear. 

The people are opposed to the grand-jury system, not because 

" No thief e'er felt the halter draw, 
With good opinion of the law," 

but because it savors too much of the old Spanish regime. 
The good old days when a man could be taken to pieces by 
machinery, to see whether he was guilty or not, have passed 
away ; but his reputation can still be crucified and mutilated in 
the most approved legal form. In San Antonio there is prob- 
ably some limit to this power of evil, but out in the frontier 
settlements there is no telling what a grand jury will not do. 

Once upon a time, a frontier's-man came to town to live, and 
in due time got on the grand jury. The very first day the jury 
convened, he got up and proposed to have Judge K., one of the 
oldest and most respected citizens, indicted. 



THE MISSION SAN JOSE 409 

" What is he to be indicted for ? " asked the foreman. 

** Horse-thievin', I reckon ; but, if you think that won't stick, 
murder or forgery will do — something that'll sorter take the 
starch out of him." 

" When was he guilty of these crimes .'' " asked the foreman. 

"Damfino!" was the response. "But he ought to be in- 
dicted. He puts on too much style, anyhow. If he ain't guilty, 
let him prove it. That's the way we did where I used to live. 
We allers used to take up private grievances first ; and, by the 
time we got through, we had to go outside of the county to 
find material to work on." 

The rural member was suppressed, and ever after expressed 
his opinion that the system was a humbug ; that the grand jury- 
man had no influence in such a community, nobody looked up 
to him and reverenced him as they did where the jury attended 
to business as it should. 

When we were ready to bid good-by to San Antonio, we 
drove out to see the missions. The ruins of four of the old 
Spanish missions are on the San Antonio River, near San 
Antonio, — La Purissima Concepcion, two miles below the city ; 
San Jose, four miles ; San Juan de Capistran, six miles ; and 
San Francisco de la Espada, nine miles down the river. We 
visited only the first two, — Concepcion and San Jose. Part of 
the latter is in a fair state of preservation. It was the most 
beautiful of all the Texas missions. The king of Spain sent a 
celebrated Spanish architect and sculptor, named Huizar, to 
build it. The greater part of the front of the building is of 
native white marble : beautifully carved statues, more than life 
size, of the Virgin Mother and Child, St. Joseph, St. Gregory, 
and St. Peter, adorn the front. Huge cedar doors, as strong as 
when they were placed on their hinges two hundred years ago, 
close the main entrance. These doors are four inches thick, 
and elaborately carved. Huizar, the sculptor, did much of the 
carving. The pocket-knife of the modern tourist has since at- 
tended to any details that Huizar left unfinished. 

" Yes," said the doctor, as he climbed up on a heap of loose 
rocks, and peered through the mullions of a lanceolated window, 
*' I do love these ancient ruins — 



4IO 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



" ' We never tread upon them 
But we set our foot upon 
Some reverend history.' " 

Even as he spoke, some of the ''reverend history " rolled from 
under the doctor's feet, and he lay among the other ruins at the 

foot of the tower of San Jose, and 
concluded his quotations with some 
very irreverent remarks. 

I stood and looked at the im- 










mense ruin, as it lay bathed in the 

sunshine of a summer day, and I 

thought of the scenes enacted there 

one hundred and fifty years ago, — the 

soldier and the priest ; the sword and 

the crosier ; the Indios Redticidos, and the Indians who would 

not be reduced ; Brother Antonio in the church, expounding to 

the squaws and old worthless Indians the true faith, while 

Brother Francisco, down in one of the irrigating ditches, per- 



DOCTORS DIFFER. 411 

suades the able-bodied converts that it is not by faith alone, but 
by works (internal improvements of the ditch kind), that they 
may expect to be saved. I think of a white hunter wandering 
through Texas in those days, knowing nothing of the Spanish 
missions, and coming suddenly on one of these great buildings 
on the wide expanse of the lonely Texas jDrairie. Would he 
believe the evidence of his eyes when he saw the samtly 
statues, the sculptured arches, the tame Indians, the solemn- 
faced padres, and the gayly uniformed soldiers ? Would he not 
think his ears were bewitched when he heard the vesper-hymn 
of the worshippers in church mingle with the merry song of 
the happy Indians at work in the ditches, while all the time he 
knew that the whole country was a wilderness for hundreds of 
miles around ? Surely he would think that some enchantment 
had been wrought upon him. 

While we were in San Antonio there was a very sick man 
lying ill in the hotel. His illness seemed so dangerous, that his 
friends did not think one doctor could encompass it : so they 
telephoned for two medical men. Dr. Amos Graves and Dr. 
Chew responded. What passed at the early stages of the pro- 
ceeding is not known, and will probably forever remain a pro- 
found mystery. From what we can gather, however, it would 
seem that the doctors disagreed about the mode of treatment of 
the patient ; one claiming that an obstruction in the subclavian 
artery would necessitate the sawing-off of the patient's leg, 
while the other asserted that the torpidity of the sick man's 
liver would require lubricating with castor-oil, or some other 
sedative. Then each claimed to be the invalid's family doctor, 
and insisted that he was competent to cure the man without 
assistance. From words they came to blows. Chew was hit on 
the lachrymal gland with a box of healing-ointment, and had a 
tooth knocked out by a green-colored tonic. According to the 
directions on the bottle, the tonic was to be taken, "one tea- 
spoonful every hour in a wineglassful of water ; " but the old 
sanatorium who used it as a weapon, not having time to admin- 
ister it in broken doses, gave his rival enough to tone the stom- 
ach of an ordinary man for a week, and gave it all at one whack. 
Then Chew vaccinated Graves on the ear with a box of Carbolic 



412 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Salve, and raised a bump over his orbicular muscle with a bottle 
of Female Bitters. In the next round there was a lively inter- 
change of Peruvian Bark, Mustang Liniment and McLean's 
Blood-Purifier, — not administered because there was bad blood 
between them, but merely as a guaranty of good faith. 

When time was called on the third round, Chew advanced on 
the enemy, armed with a second-hand Porous Plaster and about 
a pint of Pierce's Purgative 
Pellets ; but, before he had 
time to use them, Graves 
knocked him down by a 




DOCTORS DIFFER. 



well-directed blow on the base of his ductus arteriosus with a 
compound cathartic poultice tied up in a towel. 

By this time the atmosphere, for blocks around the scene of 
the conflict, smelled like a drug-store with a barrel of assafoetida 
leaking in the cellar, and a piece of Limburger cheese on the 
stove. 

The police were out following up " a clew " (a favorite pas- 
time of the guardians of our homes and firesides). As they 



DOCTORS DIFFER, 413 

passed the soap-factory, they smelled the battle from afar, and, 
following up the scent as it floated on the balmy southern 
breeze, they arrived in time to separate the belligerents, as 
Chew, on top of Graves, was in the act of pumping some dis- 
infectants into him. ^ 

Both doctors filled the local papers with cards explanatory of 
the affair : but this is the only true account yet written ; and I 
merely mention it here, that I may benefit suffering humanity 
by putting the people of this country on their guard, and warn- 
ing them of the risk they run when they are sick and have two 
doctors in attendance on them at the same time. 

One doctor is dangerous enough ; but, when two get to work 
on a sick man, the surroundings become very insalubrious. It is 
but a forlorn hope for him. The danger becomes greater ; and 
the chances are brilliant that he will have a crevasse opened in 
his varicose vein by a stray missile from the hand of one of his 
medical attendants, while his diarthrodial joint may be knocked 
out of gear, or his vascular canal stopped up by a flying splinter 
from a strong-smelling nostrum intended for the head of the 
doctor. Or, if the doctors do not fight among themselves, one is 
likely to treat the patient with a lung-pad, to reduce the swelling 
in his cartilaginous epidermis, while the other will argue that 
what the patient needs is to have a tumor sawed out of the 
protoplasmic cells of his occipital bone. The treatment will be 
about as fatal in one case as the other ; for, as too many cooks 
spoil the broth, even so, in like manner, do too many doctors kill 
the patient. 



414 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 




ROM the missions we returned to 
the city in time for supper. After 
exciting the wonder of the waiter 
at the opulence and general scope 
of our appetite, we lighted our 
cigars, and took chairs in front of 
the hotel to enjoy the fresh even- 
ing breeze. Our talkative friend 
of the press was already on the 
sidewalk. 

'* Gentlemen, don't you want to 
go down to Gonzales with me in 
the morning, to witness the Brown 
Bowen performance .'* You won't 
have another such chance." 

" What kind of a performance 
is it } " 

" It is a tight-rope per- 
formance," explained the re- 
porter. 

The doctor said he did 
not like such exhibitions, 
because he was always afraid the performer would fall, and 
break his neck. 

"That is just where the interest in this thing is. The tight- 
rope performer day after to-morrow will break his neck accord- 
ing to law. That is going to be the principal feature of the 
•exhibition." 

The reporter then explained that a noted murderer, named 



A PROMINENT DESPERADO. 415 

Brown Bowen, was to be hung at Gonzales ; that he, the re- 
porter, was to be present in an official capacity, and that he 
would be pleased to have us accompany him. 

" Who is Brown Bowen, anyhow ? " asked the doctor. 

The reporter drew up his chair, failed signally to reject a 
cigar that was offered him, and gave us the following true story 
of Brown Bowen and his crime : — • . 

" Brown Bowen is a rising young man, who was born and 
raised in Gonzales County. He has been in a number of fights 
that resulted disastrously to his opponents. If he had not been 
interfered with by the sheriff, he would probably have become 
one of the most prominent desperadoes in Texas. He is a 
cousin of John Wesley Hardin, who is accused of having 
killed upwards of twenty men, although he is not a physician," 
said the reporter, glancing sideways at the doctor. 

" Bowen belonged to a band of reckless horse-thieves and 
murderers. Wesley Hardin was a sort of ex-officio member. 

*'0n the 19th 'of December, 1872, they held a re-union at 
Billings's Store, in DeWitt County. There was a banquet, 
consisting of whiskey and oysters, which they purchased on 
time from the storekeeper, who was very much depressed at 
the extraordinary run of custom. The object of the meeting 
was to get drunk, and transact such other business as might 
come up. Among them was Thomas Halderman, who was sus- 
pected by the others of not being a genuine horse-thiei, which 
circumstance made him very unpopular. He had failed to give 
satisfactory proof of ever having killed any one. In fact, he 
was a kind of black sheep. But when it came to drinking 
whiskey, Halderman looked out for his own interests. Every 
one has some specialty in which he excels. Quite early in the 
day he was carried out, and left reposing under the shade of a 
tree. The others kept up the festivities, consisting of pony- 
races and holding the stakes, which were of a liquid character. 
It is usual at these entertainments to offer up at least one 
victim ; but, some how or other, this important matter (to the 
victim) was entirely overlooked until late in the evening. Per- 
haps they were waiting for a stranger, or a good horse, to come# 
along the road." 



4i6 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



*' Somebody from the North, travelling for his health and 
amusement, as we are," observed the doctor cynically. 

"The sun," continued the journalist, "was gently sinking to 
rest behind the western prairies, and still no stranger travelling 
for his health had been directed by a kind Providence to the 
store of Billings. 

"Bowen left the store, approached the drunken man, who 
still lay under the tree, and deliberately shot him through the 
head. A boy named Mac. Billings, who was coming up to the 
store leading Bowen's horse, that had got away, was a witness 
to the foul deed. 

*' * Here is your boss. Col. Bowen,' said the boy. 
" * That's right, sonny,' responded the startled Brown Bowen. 
*Just hitch him to a tree, and remember, boys of your size 
should be seen, not heard. Don't talk too much, and every- 
body will respect you.' 

"Bowen returned to the store, where for several hours he 
was the gayest of the gay. But the little 'boy pondered over 
these things, and laid them up in his mind ; and, when he* sub- 
sequently got a chance on the witness-stand, he told his story 
with such directness, that the jury found the prisoner guilty of 

murder in the first degree. 

" Now you know as much about 
it as I do ; but, if you are anxious 
to witness the final vindication of 
the law, I'll call for you in the morn- 
ing, and we will go to Gonzales to- 
gether." 

" How was it that he was not tried 
sooner "i " asked the doctor. 

" I forgot about that. Brown 
Bowen was arrested, and put in jail, 
at which he was very much chagrined. His friends thought 
that this was probably a mere formality : so they waited for a 
week or so, expecting the sheriff to apologize, and make Bowen 
his deputy, as a partial reparation ; but in this they were very 
much deluded. The public had come to the conclusion that it 
was time for them to offer Brown Bowen and his crowd some 




BOWEN IN JAIL. 



BROWN BOWEN. 417 

incentive to behave themselves. Even the most peaceable 
man becomes tired of being shot at every time it occurs to 
some ruffian to practise with his pistol. Hardin and his men 
did not seem to have been well acquainted with public senti- 
ment. Growing impatient at the delay of the sheriff in re- 
leasing Brown Bowen, and making the ameiide Jionorable, Wes 
Hardin and his subordinates broke into the jail, and released 
the unfortunate victim of popular clamor. 

'* They were next heard of in Florida, where they were giving 
occasional exhibitions of their skill with their professional im- 
plement. Finally the Texas excursionists became displeased 
at the conduct of a superintendent of a Florida railroad. At 
all events, they made an assault on him that came very near 
being fatal. They promised faithfully, although they were 
under no legal obligation to do so, to kill him next time ; and 
he had every reason to believe that they would not disappoint 
him. The superintendent, from that time on, took quite an 
interest in them. He wrote to the Texas authorities about the 
missing men. A large reward was offered by the governor of 
Texas for their capture. Texas detectives, inspired by a laud- 
able desire to see the fair name of the State vindicated, and by 
the large reward, went to Florida, and captured the whole gang, 
— if that is not too harsh an expression, — including several 
who had to be killed before they would yield to the action of 
the civil authorities. Wes Hardin and Brown Bowen accom- 
panied the officers on their return to Texas. Hardin now 
spends all his time in the penitentiary, and Brown Bowen will 
be hung day after to-morrow. He was extradited Sept. i, 1877, 
tried and convicted in October of the same year. He had the 
misfortune to self-defend himself against his victim, Haider- 
man, on the seventeenth day of December, 1872." 

" I think we ought to go," said the doctor. 

"It is your duty to do so," said the reporter. 

*' ril see that you get front seats, even if I have to go back 
on journalism to the extent of palming you off on the sheriff as 
members of the press." 

"We will go, nevertheless," we responded in chorus. 

" I will call for you, then. Be sure and make all requisite 
27 



4l8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

preparations. You will need for the trip some cigars, — good 
oi^es, — also a flask about the size of a small demijohn; for 
Gonzales is a local-option town. (That's why I was so anxious 
for you to go along.) Mind, you are not hampered as to the 
quality of your refreshments. You can't get them too good," 
concluded the candid reporter. 

The train next morning contained among its excursionists 
the doctor, the reporter, a large flask, a box of cigars, and my- 
self. The reporter inspected the flask, and pronounced it rather 
small for a town where local option was enforced as strictly as 
it was in Gonzales. 

" Have you ever been to Gonzales t " asked the doctor. 

"I've been there frequently," said the reporter, "and can 
give you a correct description of it." 

" Tell us what kind of a metropolis it is," said the doctor ; 
and, as the landscape shot past, the reporter gave us a graphic 
description of the town. 

" Gonzales is, next to San Antonio, the oldest town in the 
State. It is, however, so small for its age, that you would 
think it had only been started six months ago. The town 
proper only contains five or six hundred people. The houses, 
except some few private residences and stores, look as if they 
were built when the town was first settled, and had not been 
whitewashed since. The city was laid out in the form of a 
cross by the old Spaniards ; but, owing to the houses being 
scattered here, there, and everywhere, you can't perceive this 
without taking the word of an old inhabitant for it, or climbing 
up in a balloon, and looking down on the place. But you must 
not look down on Gonzales ; for, if you do, the old citizens may 
re-enact some of the bloody scenes of the past. Gonzales is 
full of historical reminiscences, fleas the size of pecan-nuts, and 
several spots on which revolutionary events took place. Under 
these circumstances, it ought to flourish more than it does. 
There are three or four stores, presided over by gentlemen 
with Hebraic casts of countenance. Besides historical remi- 
niscences, and the nuisances in the shape of fleas and mosqui- 
toes, Gonzales boasts of producing more able lawyers than any 
other town in Texas. Most of them are clever fellows. Last 



GONZALES. 419 

time I was down there, they called me 'Colonel,' and took me 
around to the place where local option was least observed — 
which," added the reporter, ''reminds me that we are neglect- 
ing our most sacred duties. Please hand over that diminutive 
flask." 

A glass was procured ; and, after all the members of the San 
Antonio delegation had refreshed themselves, fresh cigars were 
lighted, and the reporter resumed. 

" The streets of Gonzales are quite " — 

" Oh ! give us some historical reminiscences," said the doctor. 

"Why, you just stumble over them anywhere. Gonzales is 
called the Lexington of Texas, because the first gun of the 
Texas revolution was fired there. The Texans had been pre- 
viously filled with indignation at the conduct of the Mexicans. 
The people of Gonzales kept a cannon in town for the purpose 
of resenting any undue familiarity on the part of the Indians, 
who were in the habit of coming into town, and taking im- 
proper liberties with life and property. When the coolness 
between the Mexicans and the Americans began to get red- 
hot, the Mexicans sent down a detachment to ask the Texans 
to allow them to take charge of the gun — probably to prevent 
its going off accidentally, and hurting somebody. The Gon- 
zales people loaded up the gun, and sent word to the Mexican 
Satrap to 'come and take it.' He did not come; but there 
was skirmishing, during which the first gun must have been 
fired. 

" There is an improbable legend, that the retreat of the 
Mexicans was brought about by a red ant." 

"By a what.?" 

" By one of those red ants that are twice as hot as they 
look." 

" How was that .> " 

"I'll give you the story just as I got it. Sam Houston was 
in command at Gonzales while the negotiations for the gun 
were going on ; and he was camped on the bluff of the river, 
near Gonzales, within view of the enemy. The Mexican officer 
had a telescope, by which he could bring the Gringoes and the 
gun right up close, and examine them, without running any 



420 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 






risk of being fatally injured. Old Sam Houston was in plain 
sight one day ; and the Mexican officer, noticing something 
very peculiar about his motions, drew a bead on him with his 
telescope. When he beheld old Sam, apparently within twenty 
feet, stamping and rearing, and shaking his fists, and foaming 
at the mouth, the Mexican thought it was intended for him. 
Gen. Houston was never handsome, but his face distorted 
with rage was absolutely fearful. The Mexican officer had 
been about to attack. Had he done so, he could with ease 
have crushed out the incipient germ of Texas liberty ; but, 

, terrified at 

what he saw, 
he fell back in 
confusion to 
San Antonio. 
Thus was 
Texas saved." 
" How does 
the red ant 
come into that 
legend .? " 

''I don't 
know how the 
red ant came 
in, but there 
was 07te of 
them, at least, 
inside of 
Houston's buckskin trousers. He was inadvertently standing 
on a nest of them, and they just climbed up on him as if he 
was a stalk of sugar-cane. The ant ought to be emblazoned 
on the Texas coat-of-arms as the national bird of the Lone Star 
Republic. 

" Everybody who visits Gonzales is cordially invited to step 
around and see the spot where Gen. Houston camped. While 
he is taking in the landscape, some of those identical red ants 
are permitted to crawl up and fasten themselves on his person, 
and then he is sure to appreciate the romance of history." 




SAM HOUSTON INTIMIDATING THE MEXICANS. 



OFF TO THE HANGING. 421 

" Any thing else ? " 

" Yes : you will be taken to see a patriotic hole in the 
ground, in the middle of the square, where the flag-staff of the 
first Confederate flag in Texas was sunk. And then there is 
the Santa Anna mound. But here we are at Harwood." 

Harwood is a small station on the Sunset Route, about forty- 
five or fifty miles from San Antonio. Here passengers for 
Gonzales take the stage for that place, which is about twelve 
miles distant. Harwood consists principally of a railroad-depot, 
and a frame-house that seems to be sinking out of sight into 
the ground, under the pressure of a large sign on which is the 
word " Hotel." 

An ambulance drawn by a couple of tolerably good horses 
was ready to carry us to Gonzales at the rate of two dollars a 
head, in advance. 

The drive to Gonzales was very unpleasant, the weather 
being hot, and the roads dusty. The country was neither hilly 
nor mountainous ; and very few farms were visible, until we 
approached the immediate vicinity of Gonzales. The affliction 
incident to our ride on the rough vehicle was partially miti- 
gated by drinks of water at the muddy pools. It was astonish- 
ing what a vivifying effect water had, when mixed judiciously 
with the contents of the flask. 

About one o'clock, blistered by the sun, with our eyes and 
ears full of the soil of Gonzales County, very tired, and still 
more hungry, we arrived at the town of Gonzales, and put up 
at the Howerton House, an excellent hotel. 

The first thing the reporter wanted to know was, if Bowen 
had escaped, committed suicide, or been pardoned ; and, being 
informed that Bowen was still alive and in jail, the reporter 
expressed his satisfaction, and suggested that we immediately 
proceed to dinner. After removing, as far as it could be done 
with soap and water, the evidence of our pilgrimage through 
the dust, we proceeded to the dinner-table. About twenty men 
were already at work. We took our places, and were soon feel- 
ing better than we had for some time past. 

Opposite to me was seated an old bald-headed man, with a 
most decidedly sinister expression of countenance. He was 



422 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



very talkative, using his mouth for the purpose of masticating 
his food only when he ran short of ideas. 

" Come to see the hanging ? " 
• "Yes. Hand me those string-beans," said the reporter. 

The bald-headed man gave us much information about Brown 
Bo wen and his crime. He was well informed on the subject of 
hanging. Even while we were eating the soup, he branched 
off into a life-like description of an execution he had evidently 
assisted at up in Kansas. The reporter was not much affected, 
for he passed his plate a second time. The bald-headed man 
was from Kansas, and enlivened the banquet with murder- 
stories that would have done credit to the author of a series of 
yellow-backed novels. 

" Hanging is nuthin' when you once get used to it." 
*' How many times have you been hung .^ " asked the doctor. 
"I mean hanging, ef you do the hanging yourself." 
"I've helped hang five or six myself," said the reporter. 
" You hev, hev you } " said the bald-headed man, brightening 
up. " I could tell some of my experiences that would make 
your har stand on end. I've come fifty miles to attend this 
Brown Bowen ceremony." 

During the rest of the meal the bald-headed man cheered us 
up with the description of three bodies he found hung on a tree. 

" I wonder," said the re- 
porter, " if the landlord has 
hired him to take the wire 
edge off our appetites. If 
he did, he is fooling him- 
self, as far as I am con- 
cerned. I happened to be 
in the Confederate army. — 
Pass the turnips." 

" I've done seen the 
sheriff, and he told me confidentially that he was going to give 
Brown seven-feet fall. If he does, it will break his damn neck, 
jest like that," said the bald-headed man, breaking a stalk of 
celery between his fingers. " In Kansas we used to haul 'em 
up off the ground." 




THE BALD-HEADED MAN ILLUSTRATES. 



A CONFEDERATE RELIC. 



423 

'^All I have to 



"Any way will suit me," said the reporter, 
do is to report it." 

Leaving the bald-headed man at the table, entertaining a late 
arrival with a description of a dead body he helped to pull out 
of a river in Eastern Texas, we strolled out to take a look at 
the town. Our landlord was kind enough to accompany us. 
''Would you like to see the spot where Gen. Sam Houston 




NOBODY HAD REMOVED THE RELIC. 



camped, in 1835, when the Mexicans 
wanted to attack the place 1 " 

We all said we did not, remembering 
Sam's experience with the red ants ; but we expressed a willing- 
ness to see the hole where stood the flagstaff from which waved 
the first Confederate flag in Texas. Fortunately, nobody had 
removed the relic. After this ceremony was over, we were in- 
troduced to the sheriff of Gonzales County, — a large, plain, 
blunt sort of a man, with a good-natured expression of counte- 
nance, who treated us very politely, and asked us if we would 
like to be introduced to Brown Bowen. We said we would. 
In a few minutes we were at the jail. The sheriff had that 



424 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



morning received a telegram from the governor, refusing to 
interfere. The- jail was a stone building two stories high, but 
only the upper story was used as a jail. A stairway led up 

from the outside to the landing of 
the second story. Directly in front 
of this stairway was a small frame- 
building, in which were quartered 
six or eight rangers, under com- 
mand of Capt. Hall. Between the 
jail and the frame-building, several 
carpenters were putting the finish- 
ing touches on the scaffold, the 
floor of which was on a level with 
the stairway ; so that all the con- 
demned man had to do was to step 
out of the door of the jail, across 
the landing, to the gallows. The 
jail-yard was incased by a picket- 
fence, that did not, in the least, in- 
terfere with the view of the scaffold. 
As we were going up the steps, 
a man came running down, 
considerably excited. 

"What's up now — sui- 
cide t " asked the sheriff. 
"No." 

*' Tried to escape } " 
"No." 

"What is it, then.?" 
" He wants a brandy 
peachy 

" All right : hunt up one 
for him, poor devil." 

We proceeded up the 
stairs to the landing, where the sheriff took a look at the gal- 
lows, at which the carpenters were hammering and sawing. 
In the middle of the platform, which was surrounded by a low 
railing, a trap-door had been cut. It was arranged so that, 




HE WANTS A BRANDY PEACH.' 



INTERVIEWING A MURDERER, 425 

upon touching a lever, the trap would fall out, and drop to the 
ground, a distance of twenty feet. After the sheriff had made 
a few suggestions about the public improvements in process of 
erection, we entered the jail. Peering through the bars were a 
pair of anxious brown eyes. The door was unlocked, and we 
were in the presence of Brown Bowen. He was a young man, 
not more than thirty years of age, well built, and rather above 
medium height. He had brown hair and eyes, regular features, 
and had quite a pleasant expression of countenance. There 
was nothing about him to indicate the desperado. 

*'The governor has refused to save you, Bowen," said the 
sheriff. 

" He is a mob," replied Bowen. 

*' Here are some gentlemen, and a newspaper reporter, who 
have come to see you," remarked the sheriff. 

The doomed man shook hands with us. He had a grip like 
iron. 

*' When am I to be "murdered by the mob } " he asked. 

*' Will half-past two suit you, Bowen "i " 

"Oh! if I am to be murdered, I don't care when it comes 
off." 

The sheriff was about to reply, when the jailer announced 
the arrival of Bowen's attorney, who was admitted. He was a 
large man, with a red beard and a loud voice. He seemed to 
be laboring under considerable enthusiasm. Under his arm he 
carried a copy of "Paschal's Digest of the Laws of Texas." 

"Brown Bowen," said Col. Jones, for that was his name, 
" they have no right to swing you off publicly in the presence 
of a mob." 

" No, they haven't," said Brown Bowen. 

"And if you want it, you can be hung, and you have the 
right to be hung, quietly in your cell, without any public os- 
tentation. — Mr. Sheriff, I serve this paper on you, requiring 
you to hang my client right here in this cell." 

" Right in here ! " exclaimed the sheriff. 

" Yes, sir : the law requires that the execution shall be pri- 
vate, when it can be done. — Yes, Brown Bowen, you can be 
hung right where you are standing now. A trap-door can 



426 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

be cut in the floor, and a ring fastened in the ceiling overhead, 
and you can be dropped right straight down into — I mean with 
your friends present." 

" I don't see what good that would do me," growled Bowen. 

'' Cut a trap-door in the floor ! " said the sheriff : " that would 
be an accommodation, sure. Every prisoner would want a 
trap-door in his cell. This is a devil of a time to be making 
improvements in the jail. Do you take me for a building 
committee } " 

Failing to carry his point, Col. Jones looked around, and, see- 
ing our friend taking notes from Brown Bowen, he said in a most 
solemn manner, " Brown Bowen, do you prepare to meet your 

God, and tell that reporter to go to the devil," — a remark 

which produced a universal smile, in which the condemned 
man joined heartily. But Col. Jones was not disposed to take 
part in the levity he had created. He proceeded to deliver a 
Mark Antony address over Bowen, who lay on a blanket on the 
floor. " It's nothing. Brown Bowen : it \Vill be over before you 
know it. You will just slide through the trap-door, and the next 
moment you will be walking around in the mansions of light. I 
am the only friend you have got. They all hate me because 
I am your friend. Good-by, Brown Bowen." 

" Good-by, Col. Jones," said Bowen. 

''Fare thee well. Brown Bowen." 

"■ Colonel, couldn't you bring your children around to-morrow 
to see me hung } " 

** No, Bowen, I can't let my children come ; but I'll try and 
be on hand myself." And the colonel passed out, Bowen giving 
the sheriff a most impressive wink. We shortly afterwards took 
our leave of the unfortunate man, and returned to the hotel. 

The hanging was to take place the next day at half-past two. 
We did not visit Brown Bowen again, but the reporter paid him 
a professional visit in the morning. He went to see him, and 
found him very much unnerved, — in fact, completely prostrated. 
He told the reporter that it was Hardin who shot Halderman, 
and that it was a case of mistaken identity. He said he was 
going to be hung for Wes Hardin. When he was asked about 
the fatal misunderstanding in Florida, he said he had something 



INTERVIEWING A MURDERER, 



427 



in Texas that bothered him ; but, although he had killed several 
men in Florida, he did not feel the slightest compunction. His 
conscience only troubled him about his Texas misdeeds. What 
happened beyond the State line was wholly immaterial to him. 
This was the first time that I had heard of a man's conscience 
being affected by geographical boundary -lines. In regard to 
his religious views the three Methodist clergymen had much 




"COLONEL, BRING YOUR CHILDREN AROUND TO SEE ME HUNG." 

difficulty. The Rev. Mr. Scale, his principal spiritual adviser, 
told the reporter that he did not regard Brown Bowen's spirit- 
ual condition as at all satisfactory. While he had no scruples 
about indulging in religious exercises, he had made no profession 
of religion. 

The crowd which gathered around the gallows was immense. 
It consisted of men, women, and children. There were not 



428 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

less than forty-five hundred people present. At half-past two 
Sheriff Bass, Rev. Mr^ Seale, and several deputies, accompanied 
by Brown Bowen, came out and took their places on the 
scaffold. The sheriff had his foot on the trap-door, when the 
clergyman accidentally placed his hand on the trigger. Down 
went the trap with a thundering sound, nearly precipitating the 
sheriff through the small trap-door. He caught the railing, and 
saved himself. But for the railing, the sheriff would probably 
have broken his neck. The idea of the clergyman dropping 
the sheriff through the trap-door in the presence of the man 
who was to be hung, was a novel one. Brown Bowen's hard 
features relaxed into a smile of vast proportions, and a roar of 
laughter went up from the crowd. Even Mr. Scale's melan- 
choly features were lighted up with a momentary smile. 

But there was serious work ahead. The face of the con- 
demned man assumed its former hard, fierce expression. The 
death-warrant was read by the sheriff. The Rev. Mr. Seale 
read a long dying statement made by Bowen, affirming his 
innocence, and accusing Wesley Hardin and the witnesses of 
lying and perjury. As soon as the clergyman had finished 
reading the statement, the noose was placed around the neck 
of the culprit, who assisted in adjusting it. Bowen stood erect, 
and, with a fixed, stern gaze, looked down on the crowd, with 
most of whopi he was acquainted. He showed no sign of fear 
or weakness in this supreme moment. He was Brown Bowen, 
the defiant. You could tell by the wavering in the voice of 
the clergyman that the prayer was drawing to its end ; and still 
Brown Bowen kept his glittering eye on the crowd below. 

"Through the mercy of our Lord and Saviour" — In a 
moment all was over. There was a downward plunge and a 
few convulsive movements of the shoulders, and Brown Bowen's 
case was before a higher court. 

In company with the reporter, we spent the day after the 
hanging, fishing on the Guadaloupe. A queer-looking stranger 
came into our camp one afternoon, and, among other things, 
told us of a cave close by, that the aborigines once used as a 
place of abode or as a hiding-place. As we expressed a desire 
to shed a tear in this monument to the departed glory of our 



GEOLOGICAL REMARKS. 429 

red brethren, he kindly consented to lead us to the spot. We 
passed'from the prairie into the woods that line the bank of a 
large creek. We travelled a mile before we arrived at the creek, 
a clear stream running through a rugged and rocky gorge, — 

"A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here at will 
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will 
Her virgin fancies, poured forth more sweets, 
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss." 

There was a great deal of that sort of poetry in the canyon 
to carry away with us. We left it there with the red bugs, ticks, 
and other poetic gems that we found in the " wilderness of 
sweets." 

The entrance of the cave was a hole in the face of the bluff, 
about the size of a dinner-plate, and some twenty feet from the 
ground, beside the feat that it was to climb up to it. This cave 
had only been discovered a few days before we visited it. It 
was about forty feet high from floor to dome, and about a hun- 
dred feet in diameter. From the entrance, rude steps led down 
to the floor. From the roof hung stalactites, the drippings 
from which were piled up on the floor in grotesque shapes. 
The reporter said, *' You observe these stalactites : they are 
formed by water, containing calcareous particles, filtering 
through fissures of the rocks overhead. By this monument of 
history, which has escaped the dilapidations of time, we are 
enabled to fix the epoch of the creation of the world. Moses 
was a well-meaning man, but he made mistakes. The chrono- 
logical books of the Chinese are but fables ; and the Phoenician 
historian, Sanehoniatho, knew as little regarding the age of the 
world as he did about the market-price of mackerel. You can 
no more judge the age of the world by reading orthodox books 
than you can judge of the age of a cow by the amount of milk 
she gives. But when we go back to the paleontological records 
of the anthropolithric or anthropozoic era, or when we examine 
the Neptunic strata of the quaternary epoch, and the diluvian or 
pleistocene system, we find that right here the scientist can " — 

" Right here the scientist can get his head broken if he in- 
dulges in any more such geological remarks," said the stranger. 



430 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"■ We have heard all that before. What we came here for was 
to weep over the traces of a dead race. My friend, I would 
thank you to inaugurate the weep ; for right before us you see 
in a state of petrification the domestic implements and conven- 
iences of the prehistoric savage. Two thousand years ago, 
more or less, there was an advanced civilization on this spot 
that we to-day can only faintly picture or realize. The Aztec 
aborigine revelled in the knowledge of arts and sciences that 
have since been lost and forgotten, or only lately rediscovered. 
That petrification there to the left was originally a lactealo- 
scope, — an instrument unknown at the present day, but once 
used by the Aztec milkmaid to induce the cow of the period to 
part with her milk. This part was the electric battery; that, 
the rubber attachment to the cow's udder : connecting the two 
with a wire, it is evident that the most obstinate cow would be 
compelled to let down at least a gallon of milk in a minute. 
That to the left, which looks like a block of limestone, is the 
knee-joint of an animal now extinct. But, taking the bone as 
a base of calculation, we can easily demonstrate that the animal 
to which it belonged was thirty-five feet long, graminivorous, 
suckled its young, had a short bushy tail, and was used as a 
beast of burden. Here we have, apparently, the fragments of 
a Franklin cooking-stove, possibly blown up in the usual way, 
although I have been unable to find any piece of the cook, or 
the vessel that contained the non-explosive oil. That chunk 
there I make out to have been " — 

" But," interrupted the reporter, " I cannot see " — 
" No, I do not suppose that you can," said the stranger ; "for 
you have not studied the matter as I have. I have given you 
my theory. Some people may not like it ; but I have dis- 
covered this cave, and I am going to run that theory for all it 
is worth. You may possibly think that the aborigine was not 
as much civilized as I make him out to be ; but you have got 
to believe it, for there, before you, is the evidence." 

As we noticed, among other evidence, a six-shooter in the 
stranger's belt, and a queer gleam in his eye, we swallowed the 
whole story, cooking-stove and all. When we emerged from 
the cave, we parted from the stranger, and returned to town. 



AN INDIAN MOUND. 43 1 

On inquiry, we learned that he was a harmless lunatic from 
one of the New-England States, who had been sent to Texas 
by his friends, in the hope that he would either be killed, or 
cured of his lunacy. It seems that he became insane trying 
to figure out that the Chinese and the North-American Indians 
were originally the same race of people. He based his argu- 
ments on the manners and the customs of the two races, and 
on a lot of pottery, arrow-heads, frozen potatoes, and other pre- 
historic junk found in some alleged Indian mounds. His papers 
on the subject, printed in pamphlet form, were eulogized and 
commended by all the savants of the times ; and his reasonings 
and ingenious theories were admired and accepted by the sci- 
entists and antiquarians of the two hemispheres. 

I told the doctor that the stranger seemed to me to be per- 
fectly sane while talking in the cave. 

"Yes," said he, ''just about as sane as ever he was in his 
life, I reckon." 

The doctor affects subtle sarcasm of that calibre once in 
a while. 

Close to the cave we did find a real Simon pure Indian 
mound, where we unearthed pieces of bone, sharp-pointed 
flints, and earth-worms ; but we refrained from building a 
theory, the material not warranting its construction. We stood 
on the mound, and thought the matter over. We did not even 
draw an inference, or any thing else except a cork, just then ; 
because we felt that we were steeped in degrading ignorance 
regarding what the Indians did, and how they did it, two hun- 
dred or two thousand years ago. 

All know about the ancient Indian history found in a book 
the other day. Peter Martyn was the author. The book is 
called "The Decades of the New Worlde," written in 1550. 
The author says, — 

" In many places of the firme land, when any of the kyngs dye, all hys 
householde servauntes, which have continually served hym, doo kyll them- 
selves, believyng, as they are taught by the devyle Tuyra, that they which 
kyll themselves, when the Kynge dyeth, doo go with hym to heaven, and 
serve hym in the same place and office as they dyd before on the earthe 
whyle he lyved ; and that all that refuse so to doo, when after they dye of 



432 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

theyr natural death, or otherwyse, theyr souls doo dye with theyr bodyes, 
and doo be dissolved into ayer, and become nothying, as doo soules of 
hogges, or fyshes, or other brute beasts." 

I will stake my reputation on Peter having the hang of the 
prehistoric Indian business three hundred years ago ; but I 
regret that the Indian backslid from the old religion. There 
are not enough of them in these degenerate days that "doo 
kyll themselves." The present offshoot from the old Indian 
church of 1550 seems to have been "taught by the devyle" to 
kill their pale-faced brethren rather than themselves. Nations 
and religions change, also the moon, the " devyle's " teachings, 
greenbacks, and every thing except a leopard's spots and a 
boarding-house tablecloth; but in the matter of pure cussed- 
ness an Indian nev^r varies. 

While fishing on the Guadaloupe, we met a surveyor and his 
assistant, who said they were going out on the prairie some 
twenty miles, to survey a thousand acres that a stockman 
wanted to enclose for a pasture. The land had been surveyed 
before ; but the corners had been misplaced, or carried off by 
some one, and, to find out the boundaries, a new survey had to 
be made. We often wondered how a man could identify his 
land on a flat prairie, where there were no apparent landmarks 
to guide him. In wooded lands the corners are known by 
marks cut in trees with an axe ; but, where there are no per- 
manent natural objects, the surveyor marks a corner by driving 
a small, wooden stake into the ground. This is a very unsatis- 
factory arrangement ; because the first teamster who comes 
along will probably carry off the south-east corner of the sur- 
vey, and cook his breakfast with it, or appropriate the north- 
west corner, and use the ancient landmark to whittle on as he 
rides along. 

In the absence of wood, a few stones or bones are piled up, 
and form a corner ; and we have seen a cow's horn stuck in a 
buffalo-chip make one of the marks of the corner of an eleven- 
league grant. 

When corners are lost or mislaid, the surveyor, to find the 
place again, has to go back to some plainly-defined starting- 



TEXAS LANDMARKS. 433 

point, called an "established corner," on some other grant, and 
survey from that. He often has to run a line ten miles in 
length, from a known, to find an unknown, point. There is 
one kind of corner that a teamster has never been known to 
carry off. It is made with a spade. Teamsters may have 
attempted, but have never succeeded in, carrying off a hole in 
the ground. 

There are certain old Texan s in every locality who know, or 
pretend to know, the location of most all of the old Spanish 
grants in the State. These old frauds are continually appear- 
ing in the courts as witnesses in cases where boundaries are 
disputed. They can point out and identify corners, follow 
meanders, and give the biography and pedigree of the original 
grantee, of every piece of land within a radius of a hundred 
miles from where they bear witness. They have wonderful 
memories. I knew one of them who testified to having carried 
the chain in a survey made in 1806. As he only claimed to be 
eighty years of age at the time he gave his testimony, the fact 
that he was able to carry a chain in 1806 goes to show what a 
precocious and robust race the early Texans were, — figures 
proving that this man was but four years of age when he was 
engaged in the surveying-feat alluded to. 

The extraordinary memory exhibited in the matter of the 
identification of corners by the old Texans, is explained by a 
quaint custom common in the early days of the Republic. 
When a settler received a grant of land from the Spanish Gov- 
ernment, he would get it surveyed, and have the corners estab- 
lished. Then, that the identity of the boundaries might be 
preserved in the family, he would take his children out periodi- 
cally, and whip them on the corners of the land. It was no 
uncommon thing for a traveller, as he journeyed across the 
prairie, to see a rugged old pioneer standing on the north-east 
corner of his league and labor of land, thrashing his eldest 
with a rawhide strap, while, under the ministrations of his 
mother, a younger son was howling on the south-west 
corner. 

In such manner was nurtured the boy who has since devel- 
oped into the old veteran of to-day, so eloquent and unreliable, 
28 



434 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



" As scenes long past of joy and pain, 
Come wandering o'er his aged brain." 

They had no Sunday-school nor daily newspaper in those 
days ; but they worried along somehow without them, and 
learned economy in truth almost as well as if they had had 
those advantages. 




A BARBECUE. 



435 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



CCOMPANIED by the reporter, we left 
San Antonio in the gray dawn of a 
summer morning. The reporter 
was going to Eagle Pass on profes- 
sional business, and we agreed 
to travel together. 

First, however, it was neces- 
sary that the reporter should at- 
tend a barbecue, held some ten 
miles from the city. The doc- 
tor and I rode with him to the 
barbecue. 

There is a natural and uncon- 
trollable tendency on the part 
of civilized men to get up picnics 
and barbecues. Every spring, 
for instance, men, women, and 
children flock out into the fields 
and forests, and afford a great 
deal of comfort to the hungry ticks and other insects that they 
meet there. 

The excursionists acquire freckles enough to last them during 
the remainder of the season, and they subsequently find them- 
selves in the possession of a cutaneous disease, the effects of 
a poisonous vine ; but that is not what they are after. The fact 
is, that people could not help going to picnics and barbecues, 
even if they wanted to stay at home. The desire is in the 
blood. The most civilized of men every once in a while rush 
out into the woods, and live like Indians for a few hours at 




436 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

least. The habits and customs of past generations will some- 
times break out through the varnish of civilization. For in- 
stance : the domesticated dog of the present day, before lying 
down on a Brussels carpet, will turn himself around several 
times, and arrange imaginary dead forest-leaves, that he may 
have a comfortable bed. In his wild state, centuries ago, the 
ancestor of the modern dog went through these otherwise inex- 
plicable manoeuvres ; and his descendant instinctively clings to 
the habit. Feed him on the richest food from your table, yet, 
when occasion offers, he will go out into the fields, kill a sheep, 
and eat of the raw mutton, while at home he would turn up 
his nose at any thing not properly cooked. 

Another illustration : when Julius Caesar invaded Britain, 
the natives cast off their garments, and, spear in hand, rushed 
into the water, without even a bathing-suit on, to repel the 
invaders of their soil. There was really no necessity for doing 
this ; for the Romans ^ere determined to land, regardless of 
whether the Britons were clothed or naked. The Britons were 
defeated by a large majority ; and then and there originated one 
of our polite expressions, sometimes used when we are desirous 
of calming down an irate adversary. 

The ancient Briton has disappeared ; but among his descend- 
ants the custom of divesting themselves of their superfluous 
garments, preparatory to a fight, is perpetuated. To this day 
the first thing an Englishman does, when assaulted, is to take 
off his coat. Men of no other nationality do this. Again : in 
naval engagements the English and American sailors strip to 
the waist, unconsciously imitating what their ancestors did 
hundreds of years before. 

So it is in the matter of barbecues. Doubtless, for thousands 
of years, man lived under trees, and ate the half-cooked flesh 
of wild animals ; and, so long as man lives on earth, he will 
have an occasional yearning to return to his originally savage 
condition. This yearning finds expression in our barbecues 
and picnics. 

A barbecue is a festival the most prominent features of 
which are political speeches and roasted hog. A barbecue is 
usually given by the inhabitants of some rural district desirous 



A BARBECUE. 437 

of giving candidates an opportunity to state, that, if elected, all 
their- energies will be devoted to the interests of their constitu- 
ents and the public weal, and that they pledge themselves, that, 
when their tenure of office shall expire, they will restore the 
high trust committed to their hands unsullied, etc. 

We arrived on the barbecue-grounds at about ten o'clock. 
More than two thousand people had already arrived, some from 
a distance of forty to fifty miles, — old gray-bearded pioneers, 
with their wives, in ox-wagons ; young men, profuse in the 
matter of yellow-topped boots and jingling spurs, on horse- 
back ; fair maidens in calico, curls, and pearl-powder, some on 
horseback, others in wagons and buggies. These, with a liberal 
sprinkling of howling, bald-headed babies in arms, made up the 
crowd that met in a shady grove on a hillside to participate in 
the barbaric rites of the barbecue. 

A stand had been erected for the speakers. Around it the 
ladies were provided with seats borrowed from a neighboring 
schoolhouse. To the left' was a rough pine table, forming the 
four sides of a square, each side of which was two hundred and 
fifty feet long. It was calculated that one thousand people 
could at one time dine around this "ample board." At some 
distance from the stand a deep trench, three hundred feet long, 
had been dug. This trench was filled from end to end with 
glowing coals ; and suspended over them on horizontal poles 
were the carcasses of forty animals, — sheep, hogs, oxen, and 
deer, — roasting over the slow fire. The animal being skinned 
and cleaned, the whole carcass is placed about two feet above 
the coals, and cooked in its entirety. 

The process is slow, taking twelve hours to cook an ox. 
Butter, with a mixture of pepper, salt, and vinegar, is poured 
on the meat as it is being cooked. It is clamied that this 
primitive mode of preparation is the perfection of cookery, and 
that no meat tastes so sweet as that which is barbecued. 

When sufficiently roasted, the carcasses are carried on poles, 
manned by stalwart negroes, and placed on small tables inside 
the square formed by the dining-tables. Here a force of 
carvers soon cut the meat into slices ; others distribute it on 
plates, and arrange these plates on the long table, a huge slice 



438 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

of corn-bread being apportioned to each plate. That is all. 
The dinner is served. No long bill of fare to hesitate over; 
no knives, no forks, no napkins ; nothing but bread and meat. 
Water in barrels was brought from a spring at the foot of the 
hill. These barrels placed around the tables at intervals, a 
single drinking-cup being attached to each, provided the guests 
with the only beverage allowed on the grounds. 

The ladies were admitted to the table first, and dined stand- 
ing up. The doctor was horrified to see an excited female 
leave the table, approach a male friend, and, after whispering 
in his ear, return to the table with a villanous-looking bowie- 
knife, ten inches long, in her hand. The doctor thought he 
detected fire in her eye, and intimated, that, if she were not 
quickly suppressed, blood would be spilled. But there was no' 
murder in her heart. She merely borrowed the knife that she 
might cut her "chunk" of meat into reasonable mouthfuls. 

After the ladies had dined, the men were turned loose on 
the eatables. To see them, in their rude playfulness, scram- 
ble for a choice rib, — the victor going off gnawing it ; the un- 
successful one pouncing on a waiter carrying a large trayful of 
beef, and relieving him of his load in a second, — forced one to 
think of one o'clock in a menagerie. 

There was enough and to spare for all the vast crowd ; and I 
would be lacking in my duty as a veracious reporter of the 
event if I failed to say, that "the hospitable board fairly groaned 
beneath the load of good things," etc. The dinner was free to 
all ; and more than twenty thousand greasy fingers testified 
their owners' appreciation of the eatables, and gave at least 
one-third of the guests a reasonable excuse to get off that ven- 
erable truism about fingers being made before forks, — to get 
it off, too, as if it were a happy and original thought that had 
just then occurred to them. 

After dinner the speeches. The speakers were a general, 
a colonel, and a judge. The general was a candidate for the 
State Legislature ; the colonel, for the United-States Senate ; 
and the judge, for Congress. 

There were several brilliant pyrotechnical speeches of the 
usual stump type. They did not fail to speak of the palladium 



THE SIERRA MOJADA MINES, 439 

of American liberty, nor to refer to Runnymede and Magna 
Charta. They dwelt strongly on "this, the most vital crisis in 
the history of the country." They neglected not to prove, — 
at least to their own satisfaction, — that, if they should be 
elected, there would be no question as to the country being 
saved. They stated, that, if not elected, they would decline 
being responsible for the consequences. 

The young men made frequent excursions "■ to see the spring " 
at the foot of the hill. I never knew a spring so attractive, or 
one that received more attention. Some young men, and old 
ones too, not satisfied with one sight, returned several times to 
see the spring, and seemed to become more exhilarated, and 
more enthusiastic on the subject of its beauties, in proportion 
•to the number of their pilgrimages. Perhaps the waters were 
of a medicinal character, or — but why conjecture.'^ Doubtless 
those who have attended a barbecue could account for the 
phenomenon. 

While we were in San Antonio, there was a great deal of 
talk about the Sierra Mojada silver-mines. The location of 
these mines is in Mexico, some two hundred miles from the 
Texas frontier. They had only been discovered a few months 
before we visited San Antonio. Every one had something to 
say about them. It was a topic all could express themselves 
intelligibly on, as no one knew any thing positive about the 
mines. The newspapers, by publishing fabulous reports of 
their richness, did much to encourage the Mojada enthusiasm. 
After deducting ninety-nine per cent, however, for exaggera- 
tion, enough remained over to justify the most matter-of-fact 
man in the world in believing that it required very little exer- 
tion, after getting to the mines, to enable a man to acquire 
sufficient wealth to satisfy his wants, and even to run a daily 
newspaper if necessary. 

According to one account, a one-armed Mexican, suffering 
from partial paralysis of the lower limbs, with the aid of an old 
barrel and thirty pounds of quicksilver, in two months acquired 
enough money to have elected him to the United-States Senate 
from Louisiana. It must be remembered that a Mexican does 
most of his hard work lying on a blanket in the shade, with a 



440 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



cigarette between his teeth. (When a Mexican is without a 
cigarette in his mouth, he is either asleep or dead.) It was 
logically argued, that, if an able-bodied American were to go 
to the mines, he would have to put a good deal of constraint 
on himself to prevent the acquisition of excessive wealth, and, 
further, that a very industrious American, unless he had as- 
sistance in spending the silver, would be tolerably well off be- 
fore he got within a hundred miles of where the silver-mines 
were. 

So glowing were the accounts of the richness of the mines, 
that impecunious men who contemplated visiting them, when 

tendered lucrative posi- 
tions in San Antonio, 
could not believe that the 
parties offering them were 
serious. 

Gen. John R. Baylor, a 
gentleman of considerable 
mining experience and 
much humor, after listen- 
ing to a crowd of Mojada 
enthusiasts, made them a 
really splendid offer, on 
condition that they would 
give up their Sierra Moja- 
da trip. But they laughed 
him to scorn. 

Said he, "Boys, I have 
a good thing out on my ranch, and I want some of you to come 
and get a share of it. I've discovered a mountain of solid 
silver. It is not a very large mountain, but there is a great 
deal more there than I want. I have got a machine like a big 
plane : it is about the size of a large sled. I start it from the 
top of the hill, and its own weight carries it to the bottom. It 
cuts a shaving of pure silver three feet wide and nearly a 
quarter of a mile long. As I said, there is more of it than 
I need, and I'll be obliged if you will come and haul some of it 
away. All you have to do is to saw those shavings up, or cut 




CUTTING OUT SILVER WITH AN AXE. 



A SIERRA MOJADA SUFFERER. 44 1 

them with an axe, into suitable lengths for a wagon, and haul 
them to town. I'll lend you my team." 

They did not accept the general's offer, as they felt that they 
could do better at the Mojada. To some persons the statement of 
Gen. Baylor might appear to be a little strained, but it did not 
so appear to those who had read in the newspapers about the 
richness of the Mojada mines. They thought that the general 
was underrating the real worth of his mines, that he might deter 
prospectors from visiting his property until he would have time 
to get a land-certificate laid over the adjacent landscape. 

If any one had offered one of these early Mojada pilgrims 
Aladdin's lamp, provided he would not go on to the mines, he 
would have rejected the offer, and suggested that it be given 
to the poor. According to the statement of one young man, 
the ore of the Mojada mines averaged two hundred and fifty 
per cent pure silver ; which seemed a good deal to a man who 
had not studied figures. 

I saw one victim of the Mojada fever, poor Brooks ; and 
he looked miserable enough to draw tears from a tax-col- 
lector. His clothes, of which he had too few, wore an un- 
healthy look. His boots were in a wrecked condition ; while 
he himself looked like those patent-medicine advertisement 
pictures of a man, with "Before Taking" under them. He was 
indeed a loathsome spectacle. 

"What's the matter with the distinguished citizen } " I asked. 

Said he, "I am — that is, what is left of me is — a Sierra 
Mojada sufferer." 

" Tell me about it confidentially. I only want to publish it 
in the Northern papers." 

Said he, "I haven't had my supper since day before yester- 
day yet, and I'm beginning to feel weak. I'm afraid I have 
not strength enough to hold out." 

It took two dollars' worth of provisions to put that wreck in 
a condition to talk. 

" You know I had a good position with Jones & Co. I 
weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. I wore good clothes, 
and smoked fine cigars. Now look at me! But I'll tell you 
how it was. When the excitement first broke out, I made in- 



442 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



quiry, and found there was any quantity of silver ore there, just 
waiting for me : so I told Jones & Co. that I could dispense 
with their services, — that their resignations would be accepted. 
I mean that I threw up my position, and with it ninety dollars a 
month. I sent my furniture to auction, and bought an ambu- 
lance and team, a Winchester rifle, a demijohn, and other camp- 
ing utensils, bid good-by to all my friends, — except those I 

was owing money to, — and 
was all fixed ready to go next 
morning, when I met a relia- 
ble man right from there." 

" Did he encourage you to 
go ? ■■ 

" Well, no — not exactly. 
He told me there were no 
mines there at all ; and you 
couldn't get to them, because 
they were in the midst of an 
inaccessible desert never yet 
trodden by the foot of man ; 
and, when you did get there, 
you had to go twenty-five 
miles to get water to make 
coffee ; and, when you got to 
where the water was, you 
never got back again, because 
the water was so unhealthy, 
that Americans died in terri- 
ble agony in two hours ; and 
there was no use going there 
with less capital than fifty 
thousand dollars, anyhow. I asked the man if there were no 
kind people at the mines to help a poor stranger along; and he 
said the only friend the American had out there was the Lipan 
Indian, who usually knocked him on the head to save him from 
perishing of thirst and hunger. The man went on to say, that 
if he were to go into that country, and the Indians failed to kill 
him, he would never forgive them for their inhumanity as long 




A SIERRA MOJADA SUFFERER. 



A SIERRA MOJADA SUFFERER. 443 

as he lived, so dreadful were the sufferings of those who sur- 
vived." 

" Then, I suppose you thought, with the poet, that ' 'twere 
better to bear the ills we have, than fly to others we are not 
acquainted with except by reputation ' ? " 

" Yes," continued Brooks with a sigh ; '' I thought over the 
matter, and came to the conclusion that I had better stay in 
San Antonio. It is true, beer has gone up to ten cents a glass, 
and the mud is awful ; but life is sweet. At the Mojada I would 
not only miss all those little comforts, but I might find myself 
in the hands of some Mexican or Indian ; and I am very much 
attached to myself, I am: So I sold out the demijohn and the 
rest of the outfit, and bought some fresh furniture. I thought 
I would give my old employers a chance to re-establish com- 
mercial relations ; but they refused to accept the appointment, 
so I was out about five hundred dollars." 

''Yes. But that was better than going to the Mojada, and 
leaving your bones to bleach among the rocks." 

Brooks heaved another sigh, and continued, — 

"About the time I had made up my mind to stay here for- 
ever, and be an old landmark, I got a letter from Tom Jones, 
telling me there was no exaggeration at all ; thr.t he owned 
seventeen mines, and half-interest in forty-five more ; that his 
poorest mine yielded him twenty-five marcos of pure silver to 
the carga, which is equivalent to seventeen ounces to the pound 
of ore. No capital was needed at all. The climate was healthy, 
plenty of babbling springs of pure water, etc. So I sent my fur- 
niture once more to auction, and bought a new demijohn, wagon, 

team, etc." 

" Well, Brooks, I hope you got off this time. This is rather 
monotonous, waiting to see you out of town." 

" I can't keep the run of how many times I sold my furni- 
ture, and bought fresh teams, losing money all the time. On 
Monday I would hear that the Mexican Government didn't want 
any but Americans at the mines; that Americans were ap- 
pointed to all the fat ofifices ; that no Mexicans were allowed 
to locate a mine until the Americans had first choice ; that 
President Diaz had sent Mexican soldiers to the mines for no 



444 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

other purpose than to protect the Americans. Then I would 
sell out at a sacrifice, and get ready to start. On Tuesday I 
would read in a paper that the Mexicans were surrounding the 
Gringos, preparatory to cutting their throats ; that two dis- 
tinguished Mexican generals were trying to see which could 
get to the Mojada first, so as to claim the honor of having 
slaughtered the Gringos ; and then I would make up my mind 
to stay here until the grave claimed me. And so it was kept 
up until I had spent all my money." 

" And you have not left town yet } " 

'' I got off at last. When I got to Peidras Negras, the Mexi- 
can custom-house officers arrested me because 'I did not have 
enough money to pay the duty on my outfit. There is a duty 
of two hundred dollars on every foot a horse has. The duty 
on the harness is only twenty-five dollars to the running inch. 
Then I was to give bond not to take any silver out of the 
country, and not to hurt any of "the Indians who might want 
to scalp me. As usual, I failed for lack of capital. My prop- 
erty was seized as a pledge of good faith, but I was so fortu- 
nate as to make my escape. I walked all the way back, feeding 
on mesquite beans and prickly pears. When I got to town 
nobody knew me : at least, they did not show any signs of it 
— except the police." 

Statements regarding the first discovery of the Sierra Mojada 
mines are very contradictory, and are all more or less romantic. 
According to one account, a Mexican lieutenant, chasing In- 
dians, was the discoverer. The improbability that this story 
bears on its face is somewhat mitigated by the subsequent 
declaration that the discovery was made by the lieutenant 
coming suddenly on an old Indian who was melting silver 
bullets in a cave. 

Another version of the discovery says, that an old Californian 
named Bosse, having had a great deal of experience in finding 
gold-mines, started out from Chihuahua in search of mines. 
He continued his search, without finding any thing except 
prickly pears to live on. He at last arrived at a mountain 
stream with a great deal of gold in it. The only mining im- 
plement he had was a tin cup, with which he washed out the 



DISCOVERY OF THE MINES. 445 

dust. The Indians, who always have some role to play in 
mining matters, were so unsociable that Bosse had to leave. 
The only weak part about this story is, that the inventor sup- 
posed the Mojada mines to have been gold-mines, whereas 
there is no gold there at all. Under the circumstances, we 
have come to the conclusion not to rely on any one for the 
true story of the discovery of these mines, but to invent one 
of our own. "The gods help those who help themselves." 
The following is the true story of the discovery of the Mojada 
mines. 

On a sultry day in August of the year 18 — , an American 
named Parker was travelling with his family, in an ambulance, 
through the State of Coahuila, Mexico. They were travelling 
from California to Texas, via Mexico. The family consisted of 
Parker, whose Christian name was William, Mrs. Parker, five 
young Parkers, and Mrs. Grimes, the aged mother of Mrs. 
Parker. 

When near the boundary of the State of Nueva Leon, the 
party was attacked by Indians. Parker kept the Indians at 
bay for a time with his rifle ; but finally, his ammunition becom- 
ing scarce, he was forced to retreat towards the Rio Grande. 
He was followed by the Indians, whose bullets struck the 
wagon every few minutes. Parker had tied his mother-in-law, 
the aforesaid Mrs. Grimes, to the back part of the wagon, so 
that she would not distract his attention from the horses, which 
it was necessary to whip. He thought her appearance would 
terrify the Indians, and prevent them from approaching closely. 
She would also, at the same time, be useful in stopping the 
bullets that were coming in alarmingly quick succession. The 
consequence was, that Mrs. Grimes and the wagon were both 
riddled with bullets, although the Indians did not appoach 
closer to the wagon than a hundred yards. 

Parker was very much discouraged, as the wagon was a per- 
fectly new one, and wagons were expensive in that country. 
The Indians retired ; and Parker halted as soon as it was safe 
to do so, and examined his losses. He found they were slight. 
His mother-in-law was dead, and the wagon was not material- 
ally injured. Upon examining the wagon, he found several 



446 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



silver bullets embedded in the spokes of the wheels. He esti- 
mated, that, if the wheels had been properly assayed, they 
would have yielded two hundred ounces to the ton. He had 
no means of ascertaining what his mother-in-law would have 
yielded, but she was very rich. She was buried in a beauti- 
ful canyon in the 
valley of the Rio 
Grande. Parker 
used to say after- 
wards that no- 
body ever knew 
her real worth. 




PARKER'S WIFE'S MOTHER. 



Parker was anxious to know where the Indians obtained the 
material they made their bullets of, but he kept the secret of 
the silver bullet for many years. Finally he confided in a 
man named Brown, and the two started in a buggy for the 
place where Parker met the Indians. It is believed, that, if 
they had succeeded in reaching it, they would have discovered, 
the Sierra Mojada mines ; but as they never returned, and have 



LOST MINES. 447 

not been heard of since, the whole matter is involved in dense 
obscurity and impenetrable mystery. It is almost certain, 
however, that they met the Indians. We repeat that this is 
the true story of the discovery of the Sierra Mojada mines, 
and we caution the public to beware of spurious imitations. 

Various traditions exist regarding lost gold and silver mines 
in Western Texas, — mines of extravagant richness, formerly 
worked by the Spaniards, but the exact location of which has 
been forgotten. No country in the world, so far as heard from, 
is as rich in hDst mines as Western Texas. An old, abandoned 
mine is always a fabulously rich one. Another singular feature 
of a lost mine is, that it can never be found. Considering the 
number of old mines that used to be worked by the Spaniards, 
according to tradition, one would suppose that it would be 
dangerous to leave the beaten road in travelling, for fear of 
falling into one. 

The reading public would cease to be worried about these 
old mines, were it not for the press and the inevitable old 
frontiersman. Every once in a while some seedy reporter is 
short of items. But the printer must l^ve copy : the paper 
must be filled up. Under these circumstances the reporter 
drags an old inhabitant into a saloon He fills the old man 
with beer and free lunch ; and he, in his turn, fills the reporter 
with a story about a lost mine. As a general thing, the infor- 
mation imparted to the reporter is very exhaustive — particularly 
to the readers of the paper. What the old inhabitant does not 
know about the alleged mines is very important and voluminous. 
The narrative does not suffer on this account ; for, what the old 
inhabitant does not know, the reporter is ignorant of, and adds 
it to his statement in the newspaper. When the old man has 
got warmed up, and his imagination has begun to soar, he will 
be delivered of tales of pure fiction that would make a real- 
estate agent envious enough to saw his own tongue off. 

Thus it is that in Western Texas there is such a wealth of 
lost mines in the ordinary run of conversation. Every old 
citizen has a lost Spanish-mine story. All these legends have 
a common basis. The pioneer's father knew an old Mexican 
who lived near San Antonio ; his profession being the propaga- 



448 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

tion of goats on the Chapiideras, and whose father, or grand- 
uncle on his mother's left side, knew an Indian, who, wishing 
to pay him for a service rendered, promised to show him the 
mines. Before the time for the fulfilment of the promise 
arrived, said Indian died. Thus the secret of the exact loca- 
tion of the mines rests in the Indian's grave. A hint was, 
however, dropped on the deathbed of the father or grand- 
uncle, and picked up after the funeral by the old citizen ; 
and it caused him to feel certain that *' the mines are not 
located in Presidio County." 

The clew is of about as satisfactory a character as the kind 
policemen suffer so much from, or as that given by Sandy 
McPherson to a brother Scot. 

** Sandy, mon, but that's a bonny gun yer carryin'." 

"Ay, 'deed it is." 
' " Whaur are ye takin' it tae } " 

*' Ower by there." 

**An' wha's it for.?" 

" D'ye ken the eeditor of the Glasgae "• Herald " ? 

"Ay, mon, that I (^." 

" Weel, it's no for him." 

There is, however, no doubt but at some time in the early 
days of the Mexican occupation of the then province of Texas, 
gold and silver mines were discovered ; but whether they were 
developed to any extent or not, we cannot learn. In proof of 
the fact that there were at least discoveries, I quote the fol- 
lowing correspondence, copied from the original documents 
formerly on file among the Mexican archives at Monterey : — 

To his Majesty the Emperor. 

Salvador Carrasco, the humblest subject of your Majesty, with pro- 
found respect, says that about forty leagues, more or less, from the city 
of San Antonio de Bexar, there are rich gold and silver mines, which, 
owing to the occuption of that region by hostile Indians, have not been 
explored. 

Petitioner has thought proper to communicate this information to your 
Majesty, that proceedings may be had, and the proper steps taken, to 
explore and work said mines ; which can only be accomplished under 



HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ITURBIDE. 449 

the protection of a military escort, on account of the Comanches who 
infest the provinces of Coahuila and Texas. 

Said mines are called Los A/magj^es, and are situated in the territory 
of San Saba, in the province of Texas. Some persons residing in Bexar 
have bought specimens of gold and silver ore, but have not devoted 
themselves to the working of the mines through fear of .the Indians. 

With the greatest respect, I entreat y6ur Majesty to dictate the neces- 
sary measures, in order that the said mines may be explored as soon as 
your Majesty thinks proper. 

(Signed) Salvador Carrasco. 

Mexico, May 25, 1822. 

Office of the Captain-General of the 
Eastern and Western Internal Provinces. 

The annexed memorial of Don Salvador Carrasco, a resident of Rio 
Grande, to his imperial Majesty, shows, that about forty leagues off San 
Antonio de Bexar, at the place named Los Almagres, there are gold and 
silver mines which have not been worked, owing to Indian hostilities. 

His Majesty expects that you will report to me on this subject. May 
God preserve your life for many years ! 

(Signed) ^ Anastasio Bustamente. 

To Col. Caspar Lopez, Commanding Provinces of Coahuila and Texas, Saltillo. 
Mexico, July 24, 1822. 

His Excellency, the captain-general of these provinces, by a superior 
communication of the 24th of July last, informs me that Don Salvador 
Carrasco, a resident of Rio Grande, has addressed a memorial to his 
imperial Majesty the Emperor, stating, that about forty leaguess off San 
Antonio de Bexar, at the place called Almagres, there are to be found 
gold and silver mines, upon which subject his Majesty desires to obtain 
the proper information. To that end I addres^ you the present com- 
munication. May God preserve your life for many years ! 
(Signed) 

Caspar Lopez, 
Colonel commanding Coahuila and Texas. 
To the Go7..'ernor of Texas. 
Saltillo, Aug. 8, 1822. 

In compliance with your instructions, I have made inquiries concern- 
ing the mines at Los Almagres, upon which Don Salvador Carrasco has 
29 



450 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

presented a memorial to his Majesty ; and I have ordered that one of 
the persons who is acquainted with that locaHty shall proceed to explore 
the same, and bring specimens of the ores to be found. As soon as this 
is accomplished, I will be able to make the proper report. May God 
preserve your life many years ! 

(Signed) Jose Felix Trespalacios, 

Governor of Texas^ 
To Col. Caspar Lopez, Conimanding Provinces. 
Bexar, Nov. 13, 1822. 

To his imperial Majesty. 

Sebastian Rodriguez Biedma, a captain in the regul^ army of the 
eastern internal provinces, and director of the mihtary academy es- 
tablished at Monclova for the instruction of Spanish cadets, with great 
respect states, — 

That upon the San Saba hills, course north-west from San Antonio de 
Bexar, and about forty-five leagues from said town, there are mines of 
unsurpassing richness, known by the name of Los Almagres, which, 
judging from their outward appearance, promise more wealth than that 
produced by any of the most famous of St. Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, and 
Guanajuato. I do not hesitate to make this statement, being convinced 
of that fact by my own eyes ; and therefore I do not doubt that the 
information given on the subject, both by the Dipudado of the province 
and the Aytmtamiento, will correspond with the assertions made in this 
report. 

Some other persons have seen the above-mentioned mines, and 
brought specimens of the ore, taken from veins on the surface, which 
have been tried, and found to yield much silver. I believe that it will 
not be necessary to make any other expenses for the working of said 
mines than those for the purchase of implements and utensils, and the 
erection of some cabins for the miners. I am satisfied that the imme- 
diate yield of these mines will be more than sufficient to defray the 
expenses of the work. 

I heard of the richness of these mines since I was stationed at Cor- 
pus Christi. I afterward saw some specimens at San Antonio de Bexar, 
and I assayed them with the best results. I was then in active service, 
with no influence to promote the undertaking, and of course did not 
take any steps in the matter ; but having recently, under the accom- 
panying commission (which I desire to be returned to me), proceeded 
to the San Saba hills to make the proper exploration, I have to report. 



FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD. 



451 



not only that said mines exist, but that I beheve them to be of great 
richness. 

Therefore I pray that your imperial Majesty may order that a detach- 
ment of three hundred and fifty cavalry be stationed at the place called 
Los Almagres, with the object of protecting the new settlement to be 
made. As soon as this is ordered, many of the inhabitants of the prov- 
inces will congregate, and build up a town. However great the cares of 
the government may be under the present circumstances, the small num- 
ber of three hundred and fifty men will not much diminish the forces 
of the empire, nor increase its expenses. The latter are comparatively 
small, if we consider the great advantages to be derived from the settle- 
ment of Los Almagres, which will undoubtedly be followed by the sub- 
jection of the Indians, the increase of our population, and the circulation 
of silver. 

The undersigned does not aspire to any other glory than the one he 
will gain by seeing his plan carried out. 

Sebastian Rodriguez. 

MoNCLOVA, Jan. 22, 1823. 

What an unsophisticated people, and what pro bono^ publico 
subjects did his Majesty, Iturbide of Mexico, reign over in the 
year A.D. 1822 ! It is really painful to think of the "humblest 
subject" giving himself away in that simple-minded and disin- 
terested manner, — taking the very bread out of his children's 
mouths as it were. Why did he not keep quiet about the '' rich 
gold and silver mines " until he could get into the United States, 
and wait until the Mexican Government offered a reward for the 
discovery of the mines ? And look at Bustamente and Lopez 
and old Trespalacios, — all just as distressingly honest, and 
anxious only for the increase of the circulation of silver and 
gold, and for the providential preservation of each other's lives. 
Under like circumstances, the humblest American citizen would 
have been much more frugal in the matter of disseminating 
information regarding his knowledge of the rich gold and sil- 
ver mines. He would have enticed some Indian into a fight, 
allowed himself to be scalped, or otherwise ill-used ; then he 
would have written to the papers sanguinary accounts of 
"More Indian Deviltries." He would have forwarded to the 
government petitions from "the bleeding frontier." These, 
with a little political influence, would have caused a peace- 



452 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



loving and long-suffering government to send out an assort- 
ment of Indian agents and a limited supply of troops. The 
result would have been, that the whiskey supplied to the Indians 
would have killed one half of the hostiles ; and, the other half 
being engaged pursuing the United-States troops, the field 
would have been clear. Then the humblest citizen would have 
pre-empted the richest of the gold-mines ; and, inside of six 
weeks, two hundred miners would have been depleting the 
auriferous pockets of mother-earth of her golden treasure, 
and seventy-five stage-robbers would have been acting the same 
part by the passengers and the United-States mail on the new 
stage-route. All this would have gone to prove the fact that 
the northern races are always ahead of those of warmer lati- 
tudes in missionary spirit and in all other matters of enterprise 
and progress. 




WEST OF SAN ANTONIO. 



453 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 




ROM San Antonio west, the 
country is rough and broken, — 
hills and valleys, sterile ridges, 
and rocky gorges. . Almost all the 
country is devoted to stock-raising. 
Settlements are few and far be- 
tween. Here is a Mexican jacal, 
a little patch of corn, and a score 
of goats ; ten miles farther there 
is the farm of a German or Bohe- 
mian ; and, twenty miles beyond, 
we arrive at a sheep-ranch : so it is 
all the way to the Rio Grande. A 
large portion of the land is suita- 
ble for agricultural purposes, but 
its great distance from market pre- 
vents farmers from settling on it. The 
principal growth is the mesquite-grass, 
the prickly pear, and the mesquite-tree. 
We found the reporter a valuable addition to 
our party. He had lived a long time in Texas, 
and abounded in information and statistics regarding the coun- 
try, the people, products, etc. His journalistic experience was 
rich and varied. He enlivened our journey with shrewd re- 
marks and quaint anecdotes ; but, better than all, he knew how 
to cook a biscuit. As we camped out, and were compelled to 
do our own cooking, his culinary knowledge was very valuable. 



454 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



Neither the doctor nor I could build a biscuit with any degree 
of success. Either of us could prepare or mix the dough, put 
it in the skillet, put on the cover and set the skillet on the fire ; 
then we would sit down and wait, or occupy ourselves in frying 
bacon. But there was never any certainty as to what the skillet 
would produce. Sometimes it would be a pudding, and at other 
times it would be a flour-and-water brick, hard enough to ruin 
the digestive organs of a camel. The reporter made splendid 
biscuits, and then he taught us how to settle coffee. In fact, he 
settled every thing, much 
to our satisfaction, by tak- 
ing the whole cooking-busi- 
ness into his own hands. 
We rode one hundred 








'^^ "^»»tf<>^g^k>g^g^ . £7 






2a^ 



COOKING A BISCUIT. 



miles in the first three days from San Antonio, travelling only 
in the early mornings and in the evenings, and resting during 
the remainder of the day. 

We were riding along through the woods and by the bank of 
a creek. The path was so narrow that we had to ride Indian 
file. This suggested talk about Indians : indeed, it was a favor- 
ite topic with us. Whenever we talked about them, and the 
atrocities they were credited with perpetrating, the doctor as- 
sumed a belligerent cast of countenance, and spoke in a warlike 
and bloodthirsty manner of the summary style in which he would 



TALKING OLLEND ORE 'S SPANISH EXER CISES. 455 

treat an Indian, should he be fortunate enough to meet one. 
We had lately heard so much of the murderous doings of the 
red-handed thieves, that the blood in our veins boiled as we 
thought of the tales that had been told us ; and we determined 
that a terrible vengeance should overtake the first Indian we 
might meet. We even made arrangements as to the distribu- 
tion of the spoils. His bow and arrows were to go to a friend 
of mine and his wampum — if wampum was what we thought 
it was — was to be forwarded to the doctor's uncle, who was a 
monomaniac in the matter of battlefield relics. The moccasons 
and pipe were to be presented to the museum in San Antonio. 
Time and again we had talked the matter over, and as often 
enjoyed, in anticipation, the retribution that would be visited 
on the foe when we should meet him. 

We were discussing the subject for the hundredth time as we 
rode along, — the doctor in front, on his old claybank ; I behind, 
encouraging my horse to keep up with the doctor's, — when sud- 
denly, from behind a rock that stood at a turn in the narrow 
path, appeared an Indian. The doctor made wild and frantic 
efforts to get his Winchester out of its fastenings on the saddle. 
The Indian seemed to be terribly frightened, but I do not think 
he was nearly so much alarmed as the doctor was. I was not 
frightened; but I wished for a cave, or a mouse-hole, large 
enough to crawl into, and reconnoitre the enemy before killing 
him. My friends have always given me credit for being calm 
and discreet in times of danger. I felt full of discretion at the 
time, and I had always heard that a good general reconnoitred 
before attacking the enemy. I was perfectly cool : I almost felt 
chilly. As there was no cave, I was about to conceal myself 
behind a tree, when the Indian said, "Buenos dias, senor." 

I did not understand what the Indian said at the time ; but I 
was surprised to see the doctor drop his rifle, assume a peaceful 
attitude, and reply to the Indian in, apparently, the Indian's 
own language, and still more surprised to see the doctor ride 
up to the red fiend, shake hands with him, press him to drink 
out of his flask, and in a very voluble manner begin to talk 
Ollendorf's Spanish exercises to him. 

The Indian was only a Mexican. His politeness in saying 



456 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



" good-morning " at the moment he did, was what saved him. 
Another moment, and he would have been a dead Indian, welter- 
ing- in his life-blood ; for, though I hated to take life, I was cool 
and determined. I did not know much Spanish then ; but the 
doctor, who had been studying the language since we left 
Houston, by the aid of a grammar, held, apparently, a very 
interesting conversation with the Mexican, using twenty-eight 
pages of " Ollendorf s Method for Beginners " on the poor 
greaser. The doctor said he enjoyed the conversation very 




ar^a^/yh/^/r^fr.- ^ . .^ I"-- <-^^:^:!:r 



AT A TURN IN THE PATH APPEARED AN INDIAN. 

much, was benefited by the interchange of ideas, and learned 
a good deal of the habits and customs of a very interesting 
people. I have no doubt of it ; for I found out afterwards, by 
reference to the doctor's grammar, that his end of the conversa- 
tion scintillated with wit, and was something after the following 
brilliant style : — 

" Have you my book, or the book of my neighbor ? " 
" Has the merchant received the gold candlestick ? " 
" Have you the dog of the tailor } " 



" WASN'T RAISED CIVILIZED:' 457 

"Has the boy the cow of the carpenter, or the horse of the 
cook ? " 

I was very much disappointed in the way the adventure re- 
sulted. I had hoped to be able to write home that I had at 
least winged the sachem of a tribe ; and here, when the oppor- 
tunity was before me, and the Indian within range, he suddenly 
changed himself into an unromantic greaser, abounding in evi- 
dences of having had the small-pox. It seems to me, that, when- 
ever a man braces himself up to do a good and meritorious deed, 
something interposes to prevent its accomplishment. "This 
world is but a fleeting show for man's illusion given/' and the 
Indian is the most unsatisfactory part of the show. 

We rode up to a store on the stage-road. It was a very small 
store. A whiskey-barrel, some canned oysters, a box of plug- 
tobacco, and a coil of rope, seemed to comprise almost every 
thing offered for sale. There were three men in the store, be- 
sides the proprietor, when we entered. They were discussing 
improvements, and seemed to be very much against immigration 
and railroads. The doctor joined in the conversation. " I can't 
understand how it is," said he, "that men who have acquired 
wealth in flocks and herds will persist in living as some of 
them do. Why do they not sell out, and go where they enjoy 
the benefits, comforts, and pleasures of civilization .? Why, I 
saw a place yesterday where I could not tell which was the 
stable, and which the family residence ; where the pigs lived in 
the house, and played with the children, so that I couldn't tell 
where the hog left off, and the family began. Why don't they 
aspire to a more comfortable existence ? " 

"Because, colonel," said an old man who sat on the end of 
an empty whiskey-barrel, and whose open hickory shirt showed 
a chest bronzed by the ray of many a summer's sun, and whose 
sockless feet, incased in broken-down brogans, proclaimed him 
the old frontiersman that he was, — " because, colonel, mebbe 
they wa'n't raised civilized ; because, p'rhaps, they was brought 
up on the prairie or in the wood, and ain't used to the ways of 
the old countries, and could not be easily broke in to appreciate 
the benefits, or to enjoy what you call the pleasures, of civiliza- 
tion. That's whar some folks make the mistake. They, maybe, 



458 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 




think milk and sugar improves the flavor of coffee, and they 
wonder why on earth some folks prefers their'n straight. I re- 
member, 'fore the war, I had been down to Galveston, and was 
comin' up to Houston on one of the bayou steamers. In them 
days we had no railroads. I lived in about whar the town of 

Round Rock is now. We had to haul 
our supplies then two hundred miles on 
ox-wagons. The bayou steamers used 
to stop at little way-landin's, and only 
when signalled. This mornin' we was 
behind time. We had on full steam, and 
was boomin' along around Hog Island, 
when we kem in sight of a nigger on a 
landin', makin' desperate signs for us to 
stop. The cap'n cussed most powerful 

to think that 
we would 
have to lose 
half an hour 
backin' up to 
the landin'. 
But he had 
to do it, for 
it was his or- 
ders to stop 
for freight 
whenever 
signalled ; 
and the nig- 
ger had done 
give us the signal, and stood waitin' for us on the bank with an 
innercent look of happiness on his face, and a dead coon on his . 
shoulder. The boat backed in ; an', when near the landin', the 
cap'n shouted to the nigger, - — 

'' ' Hello ! what in the have you got } ' 

" ' Hello, yourself, boss ! I jest thought maybe you mought 
wanter buy a coon.' 

" The cap'n's face turned blue with rage ; and, with a howl of 







iHiia^iii:;,,:." -y-^.- 



'THOUGHT MAYBE YOU MOUGHT WANTER BUY A COON." 



'' OIVIN' TO HOW YOU WAS RAISED:' 459 

steamboat profanity, he says, ' You infernal black scoundrel, did 
you stop me to sell a coon ? — All aboard ! Go ahead ! Why, 
I'd rather eat dog, any day.' 

" ' Well, cap'n,' replied the nigger, ' some folks likes one ting ; 
some, anoder : it's all owin' to how you was raised.' 

" So, I say, it's all owin' to how a man is raised, whether he 
likes to live in the wilderness, or in the civilized parts of the 
yearth." 

Turning, and addressing his friends, the old man continued, 
*' Wouldn't I be a sweet-looking specimen of civilization, if I was 
planted in Galveston, and rigged out in store-clothes and an 
umbrella — now, wouldn't I.-*" 

The absurdity of the frontiersman being transformed into a 
specimen of civilization by the simple means referred to, affect- 
ed the crowd so much, that the storekeeper was compelled to 
furnish restoratives. ^ 

" No, sir ! " continued the early settler. " I come here 'fore 
the woods was burned. I like the freedom of the frontier, an' I 
know I would not feel more at home in the streets of a city 
than a temperance-man would at an Irish wake. I was born 
within sight of Stone Mountain in Georgia, when the Indians 
were thar same as they are on the frontier now. See that 
scar t 

The early settler took off his hat, and showed us a heavy scar 
running from the top of his head almost to his left eyebrow. 
"That thar is what I got from an Indian tomahawk when I was 
'bout three years old. My oldest brother was killed, and my 
father was runnin' to hide in a cornfield, with me in his arms, 
when I got that. The old man had an axe in his hand, and he 
split the redskin's head clear to the teeth. Not much civiliza- 
tion 'bout them diggins ; no, sir ! " 

"Not much style about those early Georgian pioneers, I 
reckon," said the reporter. 

" Style ! Why, I was twelve years old when I got my first 
pair of boots. Don't I remember them yaller-tops ! Folks in 
them parts mostly tanned their own leather, but them was 
genuine store-boots. They got me into two fights. I had to 
fit with two other boys the first day I put 'em on, and I was 



460 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



the under dog in both fights. The boys didn't approve of style 
in them days. I was man growed 'fore ever I saw an earthen- 
ware plate. We had nothin' but pewter plates to eat off, and 
wooden noggins to drink out of ; but, Lor' bless your soul ! we 
never wanted for somethin' to put in them. We had lots of 
b'ar-meat, and cords of all sorts of game. No, we didn't know 
nothin' of flour-bread : corn-bread was the staple. Whiskey ! 
I should say so ! Most everybody made their own ; but, if you 
wa'n't fixed to make it yourself, you had only to carry a bushel 
of corn to a neighbor's still, and come back with a demijohn of 
pure juice. When we had a corn-shuckin', a log-rollin', a house- 
raisin', or any such frolic, the whiskey just sloshed round like 
water. We only got coffee on Sundays ; but we had whiskey 
all the time, and it was whiskey as was whiskey, not the adul- 
terated pizen they call by that name now. You could hev got 
fullernagoose on it, and it wouldn't hev hurt you." 

As the early settler said this, he sighed, wiped his mouth on 
his shirt-sleeve, and shook his head in a regretful sort of way, 
indicating his belief that those good old days when whiskey 
actually ''sloshed around" were gone forever. I invited the 
old man to lubricate his throat with some of the juice of these 

degenerate days. He accepted the in- 
'^itation, and apologized for the size of 
the drink he took by saying that the 
soil was dry, and he did not know when 
another such chance would offer. 

"Yes, major," said he, ''nowadays 
boys git store-clothes as soon as they 
can walk. They're rigged out in boots, 
and even socks, 'fore they're old enough 
to rope a mustang. It wa'n't so in my 
day, and we had bigger men an' stronger 
women. We didn't need no anti-bilious pills nor liver-reg'lator, 
either : we reg'lated our inwards with pure air, healthy vittles, 
an' hard work. Seems to me, the more folks gits civilized, the 
more they need the doctors : ain't it so t As for me, I ain't 
agoin' to run the risk of lettin' no doctor get the drop on me : 
so I'll stay out here an' die, as I have lived, on the prairie or in 




THE EARLY SETTLER. 



AJV EARLY SETTLER. 46 1 

the woods, and let them as likes feather-beds and mixed drinks 
enjoy the benefits of civilization, an' pleasure of payin' taxes. 
That's the branch I live on. You hear me ! " 

" Nevertheless," said the red-nosed man, who sat on a keg at 
the door, — ''nevertheless" — and then he stopped short, and, 
lifting himself off the keg on to the floor, strolled lazily over to 
the counter, and took a dose of whiskey of a double snake-bite 
calibre. We all waited to hear what he had to say. We were 
interested, because he looked as if he was full of information, 
whiskey, and moral reflections. He was about to continue, 
when a cheese on the end of the counter met his eye. He 
took out his knife, and cut off about a pound of the indigestible 
fruit ; and then, in the same lazy manner in which he got down, 
he jack-screwed himself up on the keg again. 

The old settler could wait no longer. He gave the keg on 
which the red-nosed man sat a kick, to catch his attention, and 
said, " Nevertheless what } " 

" Nevertheless, although you'ns seem to be down on civiliza- 
tion, thar hev been times with all o' you when you would hev 
swopped all you had in the world fur a chance to rest your- 
selves on a city doorstep." 

*' I never knowed any sich time," said the old settler. 

" You didn't ? " -• 

*' No, sir : I say I didn't." 

"You didn't never git chased by the Lipans in '61, did you } 
Maybe it wasn't you, an' maybe you didn't wish for a seat in 
the Galveston Cotton Exchange, as you skooted across the 
prairie for Fort Clark, with forty redskins at your heels. Oh, 
no! I reckin I'm mistaken in the man." 

'' Well, I don't count that time. You see, thar were too 
many coons for the pup ; an' I reckon I did push along pritty 
lively, for the matter of eight or ten miles, on that occasion." 

"You were excusable," said the red-nosed man; "fur the 
odds were agin ye. But when it comes to half a dozen Injuns, 
gentlemen, they ain't no match fur one white man if he is well 
armed. Did I ever tell you of how I run five Injuns several 
miles, when I had no other weepin than an old single-bar'l 
shotgun loaded with bird-shot .^ " 



462 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" I don't b'lieve you ever told it," said the old settler. 

** It was in '72, when I was haulin' government-stores from 
San Antonio to Fort Concho. We had a long train of waggins. 
Thar was some twenty of us in the party. "VVe were in camp 
one evenin', on the south fork of the Llano River. I rid off 
by myself up the river, thinkin' I might get a shot at a duck 
or a turkey. I took no weepin with me, 'cept the shotgun, 
'cause I never thought of no Injuns till I saw 'em. I was 
up'ards of two miles from camp when I first sot my eyes on 
'em, an' they wern't a hundred yards off. They saw me as 
soon as I saw them, maybe sooner. Thar were five of 'em. 
Fur about a second I thought it was all up with me. I thought 
of the wife an' the kids at home ; an' then I determined to give 
them the best I had, an', if I had to die, to sell my life as 
dearly as possible. So I just tightened the reins, bent down 
on my horse's neck, cocked my gun, and started. The Injuns 
had been watchin' me very closely. They probably guessed 
my determination, fur they hardly waited fur this movement of 
mine before every one of 'em begun to run. Geeroos'lm ! You 
should hev seen 'em scatter dirt ; an' I hadn't a thing but the 
old muzzle-loader. I had a pritty good horse, an' it was a tight 
race fur a bit. I ran 'em fur two miles ; but my horse was a 
little the fastest, an' I was about three hundred yards ahead 
when I got into camp safe among my friends." 

While the old man was speaking, his cigar went out. When 
he finished his remarks, he reached down to strike a match on 
the keg he was sitting on. At the moment he scratched the 
match, his eye caught the stencilled marks on the head of the 
keg : XXX Powder. The speed of his exit was very credita- 
ble for an old man. 

This reminded me of a surprise that befell me when I was a 
boy ; a boy at that period of life when the brightness of his ex- 
istence consists in surprises, — surprising dogs with oyster-can 
epilogues, and the belated public with kite-string fences across 
the sidewalk. My father objected to his son exhibiting any 
Fourth-of-July exuberance through the medium of fire-crackers. 
This I considered pure despotism and an absence of intelligent 
patriotism on his part. I never could account for the interdic- 



A SUSFHISE. 



46 



tion, unless that it was in some way connected with the fact 
that my father was president of the local fire-insurance compa- 
ny, or that, as he said, the money wasted in fire-crackers annu- 
ally in the United States, if expended in the purchase of loaves 
of bread, would (as had been calculated) furnish food for 
Ij795j375 of the destitute poor, or send the glad tidings of the 
gospel to 231,421 benighted heathens. Probably he used the 
money that should have been invested in the fire-crackers that 
I didn't get, in 
the purchase 
of loaves for 
the destitute 
poor, or in 
providing 
missionaries 
for the hea- 
then ; but, in 
the absence 
of document- 
ary evidence, 
I cannot posi- 
tively affirm. 
Anyhow, I 
know that he 
prohibited 
fire - crackers, 
and that cer- 
tain viola- 
tions of the prohibition on my part were visited with stern re- 
bukes at the hands of the old gentleman. 

On one eventful night, by the sale of a damaged barlow, 
three alleys, and a tailless kite, I became the possessor of 
twenty-five cents. The business-man who reads this — espe- 
cially, if he has ever been a boy — will at once see that I 
made an immense sacrifice for cash ; but the circumstances de- 
manded that I should sell at even less than cost, to make room 
for a cracker of tremendous proportions that I had determined 
to become possessor of. 




CREDITABLE SPEED FOR AN OLD MAN. 



464 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

I was desirous of surprising the residents of a certain house 
on North Hill. The dark mantle of night had wrapped its 
sombre folds, and so forth, when I sneaked into the store, and 
purchased the big cracker, — cannon-crackers they were called. 
I had never seen one so large. It was some twelve inches 
long, and as thick around as my arm was then. Hurriedly 
concealing it under my jacket, for fear of the paternal eye, I 
hied me to the spot : I would remark, by way of parenthesis, 
that I have never heard a single human, or inhuman, being 
use the expression "hied me to the spot;" but I notice in 
books, that the dark conspirator invariably proceeds to an ap- 
pointed rendezvous by hieing. Therefore that was the way in 
which I proceeded to the corner of Elm and Spruce Streets. 
The family that lived at the confluence (as the doctor would 
express it) of these two streets consisted of the following : 
an old gentleman who had the gout and a large gold-headed 
cane, and who treated boys with that lordly contempt that old 
gentlemen with gout and gold-headed canes usually assume 
toward boys. I hated him. His wife, who carried a corpulent 
umbrella, and wore a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles — But 
why multiply details .-* I loathed the whole family. 

They had been to prayer-meeting. I knew it. I awaited 
their return. I stood at the gate, and saw them slowly ap- 
proach. I calculated that the fuze on the end of the cannon- 
cracker would last as long as it would take them to walk from 
a certain point to the gate. As they approachd this point, I 
hurriedly placed the cracker against the gate, applied a match 
to the fuze, and concealed myself behind a tree-box to await 
the denoimient. Seconds seemed minutes. I peeped around 
the box. They were within a dozen steps of the gate. I 
glanced at the infernal machine. The fuze had burned down to 
within a fourth of an inch .of the end. By its light I read, in 
large letters on the end of the miserable bomb, this warning : 
"Standoff twenty yards." I moved away. The precipitancy 
with which I retired from the vicinity of that cracker would 
have been creditable to a cannon-ball. I flashed around the 
corner, and collided with a policeman, making a centre with 
my head in the pit of his stomach. I was surprised : so was 



SHEEP-RAISING, 465 

the policeman. I was in a hurry to get away from there, and 
did not stop to apologize. As I swept around the next corner, 
I heard the policeman, who had recovered his breath, consign 
me to regions infernal and spirits diabolical, and then I heard 
an awful explosion. The windows seemed to rattle, the houses 
to shake, and the solid earth to tremble. As I ran, I had 
visions of fragments of human beings, of gold-headed canes, of 
umbrellas, and of steel-rimmed spectacles, being scattered over 
the north end of town. I saw a coroner's jury, a prison-cell, 
a judge, a black cap, a scaffold and a rope, and I saw myself at 
the end of the rope. By the time I got home, I had deter- 
mined to run away that night, and expiate my crime by being 
a missionary in some foreign land. After supper I concluded 
to wait until morning. In the gray dawn I dressed. Conceal- 
ing a bottle of my favorite wart-medicine, and a butcher's knife, 
in the lining of my jacket (my pocket would have held them 
easily), I proceeded to run away. 

Wishing to view the ruin I had made, I sneaked arourfd to 
the scene of my crime. The gate was shattered, and twisted 
off its hinges. While I looked on this evidence of my villany, 
the milkman drove up, and delivered to the servant the usual 
quart of the bovine fluid. A load was lifted off my heart. I 
felt my blood-stained hands become clean. If the family had 
been blown up the night before, they would have had no use 
for milk in the morning. They took the usual quantity : ergo 
they were all alive. I went home ; and the benighted heathen 
will never know that the delivery of a quart of skim-milk at 
a critical moment lost to them a zealous missionary. By what 
trifling incidents is our whole course in life sometimes changed ! 

Sheep-raising is the principal industry in Western Texas ; 
and there is probably no country in the world that offers so 
many inducements to the sheep-raiser. He has an unlimited 
supply of grass and water, and a mild climate. He has never 
to buy any feed for his sheep. It is not necessary that he 
should build sheds to protect the sheep in the winter, as has 
to be done in northern climates ; for there is no cold weather 
in Western Texas, to speak of He can buy land suitable for 
sheep to graze on, for less than a dollar an acre ; and, if he does 



466 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



not wish to buy, he can have.the use of the land, and the grass on 
it, for nothing. In many instances sheep-owners get permission 
to use the land, on condition that they pay the State tax on it. 

It is estimated, that, in 1879, there were fifteen million sheep 
in Texas. In Nueces County alone, according to the assess- 
or's returns, there are seven hundred thousand sheep. There 
is no business more lucrative than sheep-raising ; but, to be 
successful at it, the sheep-man is compelled to go out into the 
solitude of the Western prairies, and for years cut himself 
off from all society. It is profitable, but it is monotonous : it 
pays, but it is a lonely life. 

The outfit of a Texas shepherd consists of two ponies, a tent, 
cooking-vessels, and several sheep-dogs. Two men and three 
or four dogs can take care of from two thousand to four thou- 
sand sheep. I could tell how the Mexican sheep costs about 
one dollar and a half each, and produces but little wool ; how 
the cross between the Mexican and the Merino sheep produces 
the most profitable sheep, and the one best adapted to the 
Texas soil and climate ; how the sheep are sheared, and what 
the ratio of increase is from yeat to year : but these things 
would not interest the general reader. The general reader 
does not care for statistics. 

I, however, give below some calculations that I found in a 
Texas newspaper, showing the profit that accrues to those who 
engage in sheep-raising. 

" As three thousand ewes are considered a herd, and herded together, we 
take that number, with twenty improved rams, as a starting-point to illus- 
trate the increase. 





Ewes 
Principal. 


Increase 


Value Sales 
Wool Sheep. 


Expenses. 


Net Profit 


Year. 


Ewes. 


Weathers 


Herd 


I 
2 

3 
4 

5 


3,000 

5,000 

8,833 

14,722 

24,537 


2,000 
3-333 

5-839 
9,815 

16,358 


1,000 
1,667 
2,944 
4.907 
8,179 


$3,^25 

5,607 
9,100 

14-675 

25,310 


$625 
1,440 
1,740 
2,970 
4,865 


$2,500 

4,165 

7.360 

11,765 

20,445 


• • 


56,092 


37,305 


18,607 


%S1.'^^S 


$11,580 


$46,235 



SHEEP STATISTICS. 467 

" It will be seen that in five years' time, besides making a net profit of 
$46,235, your sheep have increased from 3,000 to 56,000. In two years 
more from this period, the capital (or stationary stock) will have increased 
to over 100,000 ewes, which, without further increase of capital, ought to 
produce a yearly net profit of at least $200,000." 

The figures look at first sight as if they were all right ; but 
the mathematician who constructed these delusive calculations 
neglected to deduct the yearly loss by death, say, ten to 
twenty per cent. Therefore his figures show an increase by 
birth, in the third, fourth, and fifth years, from the sheep that 
died in the first and second years. Sheep are very prolific, but 
this is expecting really too much of them. I have made cal- 
culations in which every reasonable and unreasonable allow- 
ance was made for loss and death ; and still the increase in ten 
years was enough to bankrupt the numerical system, and stag- 
ger my belief in the truthfulness of figures. Sheep-men to 
whom I have shown my calculations pronounce them to be 
without flaw or error. I have found, however, that although 
you can, with a pencil, easily start with a herd of sheep or 
cattle on a sheet of paper, carry them through five years of 
arithmetical vicissitudes and prosperity, and, making allowance 
for loss and death, bring them to the end of the term and the 
full extent of the paper, enormously increased in number and 
value, yet, when you come to look among sheep-men for the 
practical demonstration of these figures, you find difficulty in 
discovering them. 

The immigrant, when he arrives, is met on every hand with 
calculations showing immense credit-balances to them ; and 
all kinds of domestic animals and birds are brought into these 
calculations. I know of one ranch in Texas where camels are 
raised, also one peacock-ranch, and many goat-ranches. I 
figured up the profits on the goat-business for a young man, 
just from New York for his health, whom I met in San Antonio. 
I did it merely to show him how profit could be made in cal- 
culating goats on paper ; and, when he saw the result, I had 
great difficulty in dissuading him from telegraphing home for 
capital to invest in a goat-ranch. 

Thus far, the raising of geese has not received much atten- 



468 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

tion in Texas ; and yet there is more money in it than in failing 
twice at ten cents on the dollar. That the Texas grangers 
have never paid any attention to this most important matter 
shows that they are not true grangers. They have not got the 
interests of the goose at heart. They do not appreciate the 
lofty mission of the goose. Geese have a proud record. Sev- 
eral thousand years ago they saved Rome by cackling, which 
has become the recognized mode among statesmen ever since, 
when the country needs saving. There are several distinct 
kinds of geese. There is the goose that hangs high, and the 
goose that is cooked ; but the particular goose referred to now 
is the goose that lays the golden ^gg, whose death has been 
erroneously reported in "Old Mother Goose." 

I met a Texas goose-man, and interviewed him on the sub- 
ject of goose-raising in Texas. The term "goose-man" is 
correct. A cattle-man is a man who raises cattle : conse- 
quently a goose man is one who raises geese. The man 
engaged in the lucrative but perilous occupation of raising 
geese is a young man. His ranch is on Goose Creek, one 
of the large streams that empties into the Gulf of Mexico. 
He readily consented to furnish all the information he was 
possessed of on the goose-question. The following interesting 
data were obtained in regard to the antecedents and manners 
of geese. The goose can swallow any thing. Like the ostrich, 
it will put up with shingle-nails and sawdust for a Sunday din- 
ner, and cry for more. The goose is never troubled with indi- 
gestion, and, although inseparably connected with quacks, is 
never in bad health. Nobody ever saw a dead goose : at least, 
none that died a natural death. Occasionally a Sunday sports- 
man comes along, and, mistaking a tame goose for a wild one, 
shoots it on the spot ; but that comes under the head of "acci- 
dental." Unless thus assisted from the outside, so to speak, 
the goose lives on for seventy-five or a hundred years. One 
advantage that the goose has over other stock is, that it can- 
not be driven off into Mexico ; and there is no incentive to kill 
it for its hide, — a profession that is more generally practised 
in Western Texas than in any other section. 

The goose has many advantages over the other beasts of the 



A GOOSE-RANCH. 



469 



field. The cow has usually but one calf, but the goose rejoices 
in five or six simultaneous pairs of twins. Allowing- for teeth- 
ing, diphtheria, mumps, and other annoyances, the goose can 
count on raising a litter of at least seven. Geese hatch at two 
years old, but ganders are more uncertain. Three crops of 
feathers a year can be raised, without phosphates, on the sur- 
face of a goose, particularly if the goose is situated near a lake 
or creek, where it can be irrigated. The feathers are worth 
sixty cents a pound. Like the tax-payer, or the man who raises 
cotton, the goose was intended to be plucked ; and nobly does 
it fulfil its mission. The eagle may be secretary of war among 
birds, but the goose has the most pluck. The crops that are 
raised on the goose are certain. Late frosts, droughts, and a 
failure to dig up the weeds, have no influence on the goose's 
crops, of which, properly speaking, it has four annually, — three 
of feathers, and the crop it stores its rations in. The attention 
of grangers in particular is called to the following statistics, 
obtained from the goose-man himself. They are built on the 
same plan as sheep and cow calculations. 

Geese require running water, lakes, etc. Old geese yield one 
pound ; two years old, three-quarters of a pound ; one year old, 
half a pound of feathers. They are picked three times a year. 
Geese hatch at two years old, and, as stated, raise an average 
of seven goslings. They never die under twenty-one years. 



Year. 


Result in Five Years. 


Pounds of 
Feathers. 


Total 
Pounds. 


Price 
per ft. 


Total 

Value. 


1875. 


200 ganders, 1,000 geese — yield of feathers, i ft 












each 


_ 




60 


$720 




Hatched 7,000 goslings. 




' 




1876. 


1,200 old geese — yield of feathers, i ft each . , 


1,200 










7,000 one-year-olds — yield of feathers, Yz ft each, 


3,500 


4,700 


.60 


2,820 




Hatched 7,000 goslings. 










1877. 


1,200 old geese — yield of feathers, i ft each . . 
7,000 two-year-olds — yield of feathers, % ft each, 


1,200 
5>250 










7,000 one-year-olds — yield of feathers, J^ ft each, 


3,500 


9,950 


.60 


5,970 




Hatched 7,000 goslings. 










1878. 


8,200 three-year-olds and upwards — yield of fea- 
thers, I it) each 

7,000 two-year-olds — yield of feathers, % ft each, 


8,200 
5,250 










7,000 one-year-olds — Yield of feathers, Y2. ft each, 


3,500 


16,950 


.60 


10,170 




Hatched 32,000 goslings. 










1879. 


15,200 three-year-olds and upwards — yield of 
feathers, i ft each ... 

7,000 two-year-olds and upwards— yield of fea- 
thers,' -K ft each 


15,200 
5.250 










32,000 one-year-olds and upwards — yield of fea- 






thers, ^ ft each 


16,150 


36,950 


.60 


22,170 




Hatched 76,000 goslings. 



470 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



In six more years, or in 1885, the following results are 
inevitable : — 



Year. 


Result. 


Pounds of 
Feathers. 


Total 
Pounds. 


Price 
per tb. 


Total 
Value. 


1885. 


1,188,800 three-year-olds and upwards .... 
1,260,000 two-year-olds 


1,188,700 

945,000 

1,329,000 


3,462,700 


.60 


$2,077,620 




Hatched 5,634,000 goslings. 





Just think of it ! — an annual income of $2,077,620 for fea- 
thers alone, not counting what might be obtained from goose- 
grease. The stock on hand, including geese of all ages, would 
be 10,740,000; and the goose-man would be just in the posi- 
tion to go ahead, and make money rapidly. Doubtless a goose- 
wash might be invented, like some of the hair-restorers ; and, 
by rubbing it on the goose, six or eight crops a year might be 
raised. And a machine might be invented by means of which 
the crop of feathers could be mowed off in a minute. When 
all Texas is one vast goose-ranch, the State' debt can be paid 
off, Galveston will have a Goose-and-Feather Exchange as big 
as the Capitol at Washington, and then at last peace and pros- 
perity will reach to the uttermost ends of the State, and the 
goose will hang higher than Haman. 




THE SEWING-MACHINE AGENT, 



471 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



i\ ELECTING a camping-place on the 
banks of a creek, we had just dis- 
mounted from our ponies, when we 
were confronted by a man and a 
f Winchester carbine. He was camped 
on the other side of the creek, but 
we had not noticed him until he 
spoke to us. He said he liked to 
know something of his neighbors, 
and would take it as a favor if we 
would introduce ourselves, and tell 
who we were, and what our business 
was. We told him. He was evi- 
dently suspicious of us ; for, while 
he sat on a fallen tree and talked to 
us, he held his carbine across his 
knees, so that the muzzle pointed 
in our direction. We said nothing 
to him about it, but we felt un- 
comfortable. He told us that he 
was a sewing-machine agent. 
" ^ We felt still more uncomfortable. 
Would he insist on selling us a machine .'' 
Under the circumstances, as our arms were 
all strapped to our saddles, and the man's 
weapon still pointed at us, we would have 
bousht a saw-mill from him without dis- 
cussing the terms. He soon left, and went 
over to his own camp. W^e did not sleep 
well, for all through the night we felt that the sewing-machine 




-;r- — . ■ ,« 




472 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

agent's carbine was peering at us through the gloom. In the 
morning we found the man had gone. 

. We wondered how a sewing-machine agent could make it 
profitable to canvass in such a wild and thinly-settled country, 
where there were no inhabitants except those of cattle-ranches 
and sheep-camps, and a few stray Indians. We could arrive 
at no more satisfactory conclusion than that sewing-machine 
agents have more enterprise and impudence than any other 
class of men. 

The sewing-machine agent is of all ages and sizes, and flour- 
ishes luxuriantly in all climes. He travels in a light spring- 
wagon, drawn by two sore-backed ponies. He carries the 
*'best machine in- the world" in his wagon, and has its name, 
in gilt letters, painted on the sides of the vehicle. He inhabits 
the cities and towns, but is often found in rural districts. He 
knows that he is a great public benefactor, and is, therefore, 
not at all modest about forcing his family blessings on the 
people. When he rides up to a house, he hitches his horses to 
the fence ; and, instead of standing at the gate, and shouting, 
** Hello ! Mister, does your dog bite ? " as other travellers do, 
he boldly walks up to the house, and, if no one is around, takes 
a seat on the gallery, and begins to whistle. He does not 
whistle to keep his courage up ; for, confident that he is en- 
gaged in a good and noble cause, he does not fear dogs. He 
is there on a beneficent errand. His mission is to cheer the 
wife, comfort the daughter, and make the old man buy them a 
new-improved-scroll-spring, side-bar, adjustable sarven-wheel, 
lock-stitch Grover and Singer sewing-machine. He tells the 
old lady that he sees her health is giving way, and that the old 
Wheeler and Baker machine that she uses is the cause of it. 
He has known fifty ladies whom that style of machine has 
hurried to an untimely end and an early grave. He tells the 
daughter that he is unmarried, going to settle in the county, 
and hopes she will let him call on her when he is in the vicinity. 
He informs the old farmer that he — the old farmer — has more 
good agricultural sense than any man he has yet met in the 
State. Then h^e tightens up the fifth wheel of the machine, and 
starts it to sew. He shows how much lighter it runs than any 



THE SEWING-MACHINE AGENT, 473 

other machine, how easy it is to adjust, and how much superior 
the new turbine take-up is to the old four-motion crank still 
used in all the rival machines. He asks them to examine the 
mould-board on the off stationary arm, and the French-burr 
take-up on the stern, and then inquires if they do not think 
that that is the perfection of mechanism, and very unlike the 
cheap rattletraps that all the other companies are now making, 
with a view to swindle the public ; filling their own coffers, 
while they ruin the health of thousands of mothers, and wear 
the bloom off the cheek of the fairest in the land. He shows 
how difificult it is to get the machine out of order. He war- 
rants it for fifteen years. Then he flutes and fells, hems and 
braids, and never fails to turn loose that originality, "sew it 
seams," while he speaks of the simplicity, durability, and elas- 
ticity of the stitch. 

A good sewing-machine agent's tongue will make seventy- 
five oscillations and three laps a minute, and keep on the track 
nine consecutive hours without refreshments. It is not to be 
inferred, however, that the sewing-machine agent is indifferent 
to refreshments. His stomach is like his machine, — always 
in order, and adjusted to any size, style, thickness, or quality 
of goods. He eats corn-bread and fat bacon when he cannot 
get chicken and cake. He can eat a pound of butter to a 
square foot of corn-bread ; and, when there is no butter, he is 
equally fatal to molasses. 

The travelling sewing-machine adjuster is a second-hand 
agent, who travels around the country repairing sewing- 
machines. He is very much out of repair himself, and always 
hungry. In private life he speaks with a profane accent, and 
buttons his shirt with a nail. His tools consist of a screw- 
driver and a piece of emery-paper. The machine that he 
adjusts is invariably very much out of order — he says. He 
is surprised that the lady can use it at all. He takes it out 
into the shed, unscrews it all, polishes it with kerosene-oil, and 
brightens the rusty places with emery-paper. This usually 
takes him until after dinner-time. He charges five dollars for 
his work, and ten cents for the new suction-valve that he put 
in, in place of the one that was worn out. He is migratory in 



474 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

his habits ; and his invariable rule is, never to call back in, the 
same neighborhood again. The sewing-machine adjuster is 
bold, but discreet. 

A man once told me that he knew a sewing-machine agent 
who had a conscience. It was difficult to believe ; but there 
are exceptions to all rules, and nature sometimes performs 
strange freaks. The agent referred to was troubled about the 
hereafter, and wrote to the answers-to-correspondents editor 
of "The New-York Ledger," asking if it were possible for a 
sewing-machine agent to be a Christian. The editor replied, 
" With God there is nothing impossible." 

A great part of the prairies in Western Texas is covered 
with a thick growth of mesquite-trees. The mesquite resem- 
bles the peach-tree more closely than any other I can think of ; 
and, when a stranger sees a mesquite chaparral for the first 
time, he can hardly realize that he is not looking on a peach- 
orchard. There is no more valuable natural growth in Texas 
than the mesquite. As fire-wood it has no equal in the matter 
of making hot fires. Its bark is more valuable as a factor in 
the tanning process in hot climates than the bark of any other 
tree. It penetrates the hide much more quickly than oak bark. 
From the tree there exudes, during the summer, a gum that is 
said to be superior to gum arable. This gum can be found in 
such quantities that it will pay well for gathering it. Exceed- 
ingly rich and nutritious beans grow on the mesquite-tree. 
Horses and cattle are very fond of them, and a horse will grow 
fat more quickly on mesquite beans than on corn or any other 
cereal. I have seen this demonstrated. Then, if you cut down 
the tree, and do not want to make fence-rails out of it, you can 
extract from it a superior quality of croton-oil. The mesquite- 
tree possesses other valuable qualities ; and the only thing I 
have heard said derogatory to its usefulness is, that its branches 
are not sufficiently strong, and do not grow high enough, to 
hang horse-thieves on. For a hundred and fifty miles inland 
from the coast the mesquite is not to be found ; nor does it 
grow along the river-bottoms. It grows in the comparatively 
rainless portions of Texas, and is to be found only on the 
prairies, where the soil is dry. Nature sometimes makes 



THE DOCTOR'S DEADLY AIM. 475 

strange adjustments of her benefits and her niggardliness. It 
is said to be a fact, that in exceptionally dry seasons, when the 
grass is withered and burned up, the mesquite-tree invariably 
bears a most abundant crop of beans, furnishing excellent food 
for the cattle, that would otherwise suffer from the effects of 
the drought. 

The woods and the prairies, the hillsides and the valleys, were 
full of life as we rode along. A crash among the branches, 
and a deer would bound across our path, giving the doctor only 
time enough to get excited over unbuckling his rifle from his 
saddle before it was out of sight. The redbird, in his gorgeous 
crimson suit and jaunty top-knot, would silently flit from bough 
to bough in front of us, while, high up on the topmost branch 
of a live-oak, the sober-hued mocking-bird made the echoes 
answer to his joyous notes. Now a cJiaparral cock, with an 
absurdly long tail, out of all proportion to his lean body, w^ould 
trot up the dusty path, and dodge into the thicket. Then it 
would be a jack-rabbit suddenly starting at our feet, and bound- 
ing off with an air of surprise and alarm. When the sun went 
down, the voice of the whip-poor-will, the cricket, and the owl, 
would reach us in the sombre gloaming, as, weary and tired, 
we jogged along in search of a suitable spot to camp for the 
night. At no time in all our journey were we out of sight or 
hearing of some bird, beast, or "varmint." 

The doctor shot a great deal, but with very little result. 
Almost every evening we had either a quail, a wild turkey, or 
a venison ham for supper. The doctor talked a great deal 
about the quail and other game costing nothing, and went into 
calculations showing, that, except coffee, flour, and salt, a man 
might have nothing to buy, and yet live comfortably for an 
indefinite time on the frontier. 

Then the reporter made a calculation. He counted the 
number of times the doctor discharged his gun during one 
day, calculating the value of the cartridges used. Then he 
divided the amount by the two quail and the one small rabbit 
that were the result of the doctor's deadly aim, and demon- 
strated that the average cost of each carcass was fifty-five 
cents, not counting the wear and tear of the gun. After 



476 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

that, the doctor was oppressively silent when he unloaded ,his 
game-bag in the evenings. 

"I never felt such a draught," said the reporter, who was 
sitting between two trees in front of the fire, after supper. 

"I have always had a prejudice against drafts since the second 
year of the war," said the doctor. 

We refused to smile at this attempt on the doctor's part to 
say a smart thing. It is evidently a severe strain on the doc- 
tor's system to produce one of these chunks of wit, and he does 
not get over it for hours afterwards. As he seldom attempts 
any thing of the kind, and as it hurts him so much when he 
does, it was probably unkind of us to pretend not to see the 
point. 

The reporter stretched himself out on a buffalo robe, clasped 
his hands behind his neck, settled his head on his saddle, and, 
after lighting one of those cigars of the kind that should be 
smoked on top of a shot-tower on a windy day, he proceeded, — 

''In the fall of 1863 the Federal troops, under Gen. Warren 
and favorable auspices, occupied Indianola, which is situated 
on a very narrow peninsula on the coast of Texas, and is, in 
fact, almost an island, the waters of the Gulf nearly meeting 
in the rear of the town. As the bayous and lagoons around 
Indianola cannot be forded, and are infested with a breed of 
large mosquitoes called gallinippers, one would suppose the 
place sufficiently fortified to keep out intruders. Anybody 
who has ever been there will have difficulty in understanding 
how a stranger could get into the town without maps, dark- 
lanterns, and a native guide, or what he would want to get in 
there for, anyhow. 

'* The Yankees knew the desperate character of the men who 
had been unable, thus far, to mingle personally in the strife, and, 
knowing that there were many of that kind in Texas, they took 
every possible precaution to protect themselves. There was no 
fear of the ordinary Confederate soldier ; but the fellows who 
had been making war-to-the-knife speeches for three years had 
to be guarded against. The Federal troops began to add to the 
natural fortifications of the place. They also threw up mos- 
quito-bars to protect themselves from the Confederate mosqui- 

") 
/ 



TEXAS DURING THE WAR. 477 

toes, and waged unrelenting war on the fleas ; which were all 
Confederate fleas, and opposed to any thing in the nature of a 
bloodless solution of the fratricidal struggle. 

" Notwithstanding the natural advantages of the place, the 
Federals threw up four lines of breastworks, and built half a 
dozen forts. They also placed the gunboats within grapeshot 
range, broadside on. Twenty-five thousand men could not have 
captured the town." 

*' How did you find out all this } " asked the doctor. 

**We went right into the town, a vv^hole company of us, 
armed with nothing but carbines, and, after staying some time, 
came out again without the loss of a man or a horse." 

" Did the Federals " — * 

''Oh ! they were gone two days before." 

''Yes, I see," said the doctor : "they must have found out 
that you were coming." 

" They were glad to get away in time, no doubt. They left 
in transports," said the reporter ; and he looked at the doctor, 
to see if he recognized this play on words, that has been used 
with reference to maritime excursions from the days of Noah 
down to the present time. , 

"Was there much suffering down here during the war.?'* 
asked the doctor. 

" Not much in this part of Texas ; for most of the cotton that 
got out of the South went through Brownsville or San Anto- 
nio. The consequence was, that there was plenty of money in 
circulation, — real hard money, not stuff that the rats could eat. 
The Federal government made no effort to prevent this trade. 
There were hundreds of ships loading and unloading at the 
mouth of the Rio Grande. The whole trans-Mississippi de- 
partment was supphed with arms, clothing, ammunition. Con- 
federate song-books, and every thing else calculated to aid and 
comfort the States in rebellion. The regiment of which I was 
a member was stationed in Western Texas, where there were 
no Federal troops at that time ; and so we suffered but little. 
Sometimes, however, it was rather rough on the aristocratic 
sons of Mars, belonging to my company, to have to shave them- 
selves, and shine their own boots. But we had made up our 



478 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

minds to endure all such hardships rather than submit to 
Yankee rule : so we bore our suffering in silence ; at least, some 
of us did. Other Confederate troops had to suffer in Virginia 
and other places : why should we not bear our share of the 
general sorrow and misery, even to the extent of sleeping out 
in the woods, with nothing but a buffalo robe between us and 
the hard ground ? We bore this, and more too, with §partan 
fortitude, and never thought of giving up the struggle for inde- 
pendence, until Gen. Hebert issued that inhuman order that 
provided for only five wagons to each company. He was a mili- 
tary martinet. What sympathy had he for the suffering sol- 
dier t He did not have to endure hardships, as they had. 
When that order came, cutting down our transportation, there 
were some who wished, in their rage, that the war was already 
over. Our captain, Dick Taylor, who had to come down to 
one wagon for his mess, said he was afraid we had underrated 
the power of the hireling foe. tie had to abandon his centre- 
table and two of his feather-beds. That was merely the begin- 
ning of his suffering. As the mad struggle progressed, the 
hardships increased, until they became almost intolerable. I 
remember the morning that the captain's colored waiter told 
him that there would be no milk for his coffee, as the cow had 
stampeded in the night. He raved and talked like the presi- 
dent of a county convention. He cursed everybody whom he 
thought to blame for the establishment of the Confederacy." . 

" He could not have been much of a patriot," said the doctor. 

" You see, he had not had much experience at being a 
patriot, and we were all of us a little awkward about it at 
first." 

" What battles did you assist in waging ? " asked the doctor. 

" Lemme see," said the journalist : "I was in the siege and 
final capture by assault of Indianola, after the enemy had re- 
treated in dismay, and I was in the battle of Norris's Bridge, 
where twenty-seven shells were hurled at our captain in rapid 
succession." 

" I have never heard of those battles," said the doctor in an 
incredulous tone. 

*' It's never too late to learn. I'll tell you all about them 



THE REPORTER'S WAR EXPERIENCE. 479 

now, if you want to be carried back to the sanguinary field, and 
have got another cigar on your person. In the early part of 
the war our losses were pretty heavy. The doctors were able 
to procure medicine then ; but afterwards, owing to the block- 
ade, physic was scarce, and the death-rate was light." 

It was dark now, and the fire was nearly dead. I could not 
see the reporter, but I could distinctly hear him wink at me. 
The doctor poked the dying embers in a vicious way with the 
skillet, and said, ''This is no subject to joke about. If you can 
talk seriously about the battle you speak of, I would like to 
hear the particulars." 

''The Federal troops," began the journalist, " did not attempt 
to seize the whole State of Texas, until Gen. Banks, with a 
large army, came up Red River, in the fall of 1864. Then 
Gen. Warren occupied Indianola with three or four thousand 
troops, and, as I have already stated, fortified it strongly. 
Gen. Magruder issued a suggestion to Duffs's regiment. Thirty- 
third Texas Cavalry. He suggested that they do picket-duty 
around Indianola. I say ' suggested,' because the colonel of 
the Thirty-third had too much style and Southern chivalry to 
allow of being ordered. 

" I belonged to the Thirty-third. We were only five or six 
hundred strong ; but fifty thousand thoroughly disciplined men 
could not have come nearer freezing to death that winter, on 
the bald prairies, than we did. War showed us his wrinkled 
front, although we did not want to see it. I never knew any 
thing about the horrors of war until I stood guard, in a wet 
norther, on that prairie thirty miles square. It was not until 
I got the rheumatism in one of my legs, from exposure, that I 
began to perceive what an outrage on civilization and humanity 
the firing on the old flag at Sumter really was. 

" While we poor but proud and haughty Confederates were ex- 
posed to the rude blasts of winter, living principally on beef badly 
cooked, the Federal hirelings, who came from the North, and 
who never felt comfortable unless there was ice on the ground, 
were in nice quarters in the town, drawing rations of the finest 
quality. The Yankees in Indianola were a bad set. They were 
the most fiendish scoundrels I ever came in contact with." 



48o 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



" Did you actually come in contact with them ? " asked the 
doctor. 

" We were very near doing so at the passage of Chocolate 
Bayou, or, rather, at the battle of Norris's Bridge. Our orbits 
would have been dangerously contiguous if we had not been 
well mounted. That we did not come in contact with them 
was not their fault. They could not overtake us. But I'll give 







f PI/; 







COL. G. W. BRACKENRIDGE, THE FEDERAL BROTHER IN CAMP. 



you an instance of how utterly destitute of all natural feeling 
they were. 

"The major of our regiment was Tom Brackenridge. He 
was with us, doing picket-duty on the outside. There was a 
brother of his, Col. G. W. Brackenridge, a paymaster with the 
Yankees at Indianola. The Confederate brother sent a kindly 
message to his Yankee brother, stating that he trusted the 
war would soon be ended, and that he hoped the day was not 
far distant when they would meet once more, under more pleas- 
ant auspices, in their childhood's happy home. Now, what 
answer do you think that Yankee long-lost brother, with a 
strawberry-mark, sent back ^ " 



''FREEZING HIS DAMNED REBEL LEGS OFFr 48 1 

"I can't imagine. Perhaps he sent him a basket of cham- 
pagne." 

" Not exactly. He sent back word, that if the other was 
really his brother, which he trusted was not the case, he hoped 
he would freeze his damned rebel legs off, out on the prairie, 
before the winter was over." 

" That was rather a heartless remark to make about any 
one," interrupted the doctor. 

" Washington's army at Valley Forge could not compete 
with us in the way of suffering. They were used to it : we 
were not. The Yankees would not leave Indianola ; and, of 
course, as long as they remained there, we had to do picket- 




MAJOR TOM BRACKENRIDGE, THE CONFEDERATE BROTHER IN CAMP. 



duty out in the cold. They knew well enough what a favor it 
would be to us, to be allowed to return to our homes ; but they 
would not go away, and they never offered us a blanket to keep 
ourselves warm. Such are the cruel necessities and inhuman 
requirements of war. 

*' They, however, came out sometimes, and warmed us up. 
They made us take exercise ; but it did us good : we travelled 
31 



482 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



for our health. The Yankees did not seem to feel the cold 
weather in the least. One of our scouts ventured close to the 
town during the prevalence of a very cold norther, and he re- 
ported that he saw whole battalions of Yankees bathing in the 
Gulf. He was one of the most remarkable scouts we had. He 
would scout around miles of truth for days at a time without 

capturing a handful 
•.,''"• •: '"' .. ,, of it." 

*'It seems to me," 
said the doctor medi- 
tatively, ''that at 
some previous period 
of my existence a 
gentleman connect- 
ed with the press of 
Texas promised ^to 
give us a graphic de- 
scription of the battle 
of Norris's Bridge." 
" Now that you 
mention it, I remem- 
ber that I made that 
promise," said the 
reporter. " I will pro- 
ceed at once to brins: 








■ •^•'■^K 






'/f 



7;'^f 




















'THEY MADE US TAKE EXERCISE." 



on the engagement. 
Norris's Bridge is, 
or was, on Chocolate 
Bayou, between the 
towns of Indianola 
and Lavacca. Both these towns are on the coast, six or eight 
miles apart. Before the war, all goods shipped to South-western 
Texas were landed at either Indianola or Port Lavacca, and 
there was a bitter rivalry between the two places. Of late, 
however, both towns have become so dead that there is not 
vitality enough left in them to carry on a quarrel about any 
thing ; but, at the time I speak of, the' representatives of the 
commercial and shipping interests of each place were always 



PRECIPITATING THE CONFIICT. 483 

quarrelling, fighting, and under-estimating the amount of each 
other's business." 

"The battle of Norris's Bridge was fought between the 
Lavacca and Indianola merchants, was it ? " queried the doctor. 

The Texas journalist replied, "As I see you want gore, I 
shall precipitate the conflict at once. I told you, I think, that 
Gen. Warren and his troops were occupying Indianola, and 
keeping us occupied in watching them in all sorts of bad 
weather. Our principal picket-station was at Norris's Bridge. 
There was a house there in which lived the man Norris, who 
levied blackmail on all who had occasion to pass over the 
bridge in times of peace. The bridge was not a remarkable 
one ; but, as the bayou could not be forded, it was very popular. 
We had about forty men, who were sent out in detachments 
to the immediate vicinity of Indianola, returning every morn- 
ing, when relieved by another detail from the regimental camp, 
six or eight miles distant. 

" One evening it was my turn for picket-duty. Fortunately 
the weather was warm and pleasant, as it usually is in Texas 
after a norther ; and, if we had had any positive assurance that 
the Yankees would not interfere with us while on picket-duty, 
w^e would not have cared if the war kept right on. Having no 
assurance, we made every preparation for an active and vigor- 
ous campaign. I borrowed all the blankets I could get, that I 
might be protected from any change in the weather. I cooked 
a quantity of corn-bread and bacon, which was all the variety 
of provisions the Confederacy furnished, to^ enable us to main- 
tain the struggle against the Northern hordes. Having sad- 
dled my war-mustang, and loaded him up to the gunwale, I 
told the sergeant I was ready for the fray, and that he might 
give the order to march. The sergeant was an old soldier, who 
had been in Virginia during the first year of the war, and had 
been frequently known to shake his head and dissent when 
some of the boys who had not had any actual experience on 
the tented field used to talk about how easy it would be to 
annihilate the Yankees if they would only give us a chance. 
He would tell us — to encourage us, probably — about the effect 
of large shells exploding in the midst of a company of soldiers, 



484 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

and how even Jie had to run several miles to avoid being im- 
posed on by Federal soldiers. Most of us thought he must be 
lacking in nerve ; and there were rumors to the effect that he 
was not loyal to the Confederacy, because he seemed to have 
so much respect for the United-States army. When I told 
him I was ready, he looked at me, and asked me where my car- 
bine, revolver, and ammunition were. I had left them in camp. 
He suggested that I should take them along, as I might need 
them some time. Upon reflection, I agreed with him. Some- 
body might steal them before I got back. I then put all my 
armor on, and we were inspected. There was a solemnity 
about that inspection that impressed me, for the first time, 
with a fear that the Union, of our forefathers was in danger. 

'* Thus far our regiment had never had the coveted opportu- 
nity of crossing swords with the foe ; and I, in particular, was 
getting a little rusty in the art of war. I knew no fear, how- 
ever ; for had I not often heard that one Confederate could eat 
up ten Yankees, even when he was not hungry } The reason, 
I suppose, that we carried any rations at all, was because of the 
uncertainty of meeting and eating Federal hirelings." 

The doctor yawned until the hinges of his jaws creaked, 
and asked if the battle of Norris's Bridge was fought before 
or after Lee had surrendered. 

Our friend, however, paid little attention to the question. 
Merely remarking that it would have come off much sooner if 
he had been allowed to tell his story without interruptions, he 
proceeded, — 

"We finally mounted our horses ; and, forming by twos, we 
rode in the direction of the doomed city. We had a good deal 
of conversation on the way ; but much of it, owing to my defec- 
tive memory, is irretrievably lost. [Grunts of satisfaction from 
the doctor.] We had only gone about four miles, when we came 
upon signs of the enemy. A detachment of Federal cavalry, 
having a large infantry force to protect them, came out of 
Indianola, about a week before, to procure beef. They only 
remained out a short time. It was in their deserted camp that 
we discovered their 'signs.' There were evidences, on every 
hand, of the paternal care that Uncle Sam extended to his sol- 



WEEPING OVER AN EMPTY SARDINE-BOX. 485 

diers ; and these evidences had a very depressing effect on us. 
One of my comrades, who had been raised in the lap of luxury 
until he went into the army, picked up an empty can, and then 
burst into tears. It was almost more than he could bear, for 
it called up hallowed recollections of the happy past. On the 
can was a label ; and on the label we read, ' Baltimore Cove 
Oysters.' There were many cans lying around with exasper- 
ating labels on them, but they were all empty. It was a touch- 
ing sight to see those hardy troopers hang in silent misery over 
a vaca'lit sardine-box, or drop a tear into an untenanted pickle- 

jar. . . 

- Corporal Wilkins roused himself from the inspection ot a 
can where preserved strawberries had once resided, and, cast- 
ing his ration of miserable corn-bread on the prairie, he said 
that he had just realized what an outrage firing on the old flag 
at Sumter was ; and then he fell upon his faithful colored ser- 
vant and almost beat the life out of him, because he was a rep- 
resentative of the race that had brought all this suffering and 
privation on us. The most thrilling circumstance was the find- 
in- of a quart-bottle labelled ^ Old Rye Whiskey.' When the 




CHEERING THEIR DROOPiNG SPIRITS WITH A SMELL. 

sergeant discovered it, and held it up to view, a shout went up 
that would have peeled the bark off a tree, if there had been 
one on the prairie, and would have been a severe strain on the 
capacity of the largest echo in the land. In a moment it was 
discovered that the Yankees had neglected to leave the whis- 
key, but the smell was in the bottle still. 



486 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" It was a never-to-be-forgotten sight, to see us poor and hun- 
gry, but proud and patriotic rebels drawn up in line, and then 
in single file marched pass the sergeant, who held out the bot- 
tle, that each one, as he passed, might revive sacred memories, 
and cheer up his drooping spirits with a smell. 

"The sergeant, taking a mean advantage of his authority, 
retained possession of the bottle. 

'' The finding of this camp had a good effect : it made us 
fearless of being captured. 

"One said, 'A government that furnishes its troops with 
that kind of rations is invincible.' Another, holding up an 
empty pickle-bottle, said, in the language of Caractacus when 
taken to Rome, ' How can people possessed of such luxuries 
at home,' etc .'' " 

We spent next day in a small village, where the reporter had 
some business. 

A strip of sand a quarter of a mile long and twenty yards 
wide ; on each side, at irregular intervals, about twenty wooden 
buildings, mostly one story in height, and very much in need 
of paint ; a little schoolhouse, without any teacher or pupils, at 
one end of the street; a toll-bridge over a creek at the other 
end ; half way up the street, a two-story house with a sign over 
the door that tells the wayfarer that he can get meals at all 
hours ; opposite this, a grocery-store and post-office ; next door 
to the post-office, a saloon ; a cross-eyed negro, leaning against 
a hitching-post in front of the saloon, whistling to a spotted 
dog that is lying in the middle of the street, with his whole 
attention concentrated on an invisible but apparently energetic 
flea ; a public well with nothing in it but two or three broken 
bricks, an empty oyster-can, and a dead cat, — simmering in 
the hot and blistering rays of a July sun, these are all the out- 
ward and visible signs of a typical Texas village, as we ride 
through it, and stop in front of what is, by courtesy, called a 
hotel. All the inhabitants of the place, except the cross-eyed 
negro, the spotted dog, and the flea, seem to be dead or asleep. 
After shouting " Hello ! " a number of times, the landlord, a 
tired-looking man, comes slowly to the door, rubbing his eyes, 



A TYPICAL TEXAS VILLAGE. 487 

and says "Howdy? Alight, gentlemen." He says it in a tone 
that discourages the hope we have had that the landlord would 
be glad to see us, and would kill the fatted chicken for our 
entertainment. He kicks a negro awake, and sends him to 
the stable with our horses, ushers us into a room where there 
is a tin basin, and a pitcher without any water in it, a roller- 
towel, a couch with its entrails sticking out, a mirror that, when 
we look in it, shows us an elongated, bulging-eyed face, that we 
have a distinct recollection of having seen more than once on 
a new brass door-knob. The unpainted wooden walls are deco- 
rated with a railroad-map, two fashion-plates from "The Young 
Ladies' Journal" of A.D. 1868, and a set of plough-harness 
hanging on a nail. The landlord wakes up a tall woman, who 
has been asleep on the back porch, and tells her to get " a 
meal's vittals " ready for three travellers. She goes to the 
kitchen, and returns in an hour with a plateful of yellow biscuit, 
a tin pot containing coffee, and a dish of fried bacon. This is 
all we have for dinner, except flies and a strong smell of the 
stable, consequent on having the negro who took care of our 
horses to wait on the table. 

It makes us restless to think that we have to stay all the 
evening in the village. How to pass the time cheerfully is a 
problem. To say the least of it, the place is dull. In a cemetery 
one could find some interest in reading the inscriptions on the 
tombstones ; but here there seems to be nothing to read, except 
some information on the railroad-map regarding the Q. B. M. 
road being the shortest and most direct route to somewhere. 
The citizens seem to wake up to some extent in the evening. 
The cross-eyed negro, with a bored expression on his face, and 
a bucksaw in his hand, begins sawing wood in the back-yard of 
the saloon. A man from the country comes in, and buys a 
plug of tobacco, asks the storekeeper if he knows what new 
oats are selling at by the bushel, and if he has noticed, any 
time during last week, a man pass, riding on a brown mule, and 
then he rides away. Several children come out, and play in a 
yard opposite ; the grocer pursues a goat out into the suburbs ; 
two men go down by the creek, dig a sardine-box full of worms, 
and go fishing ; a drummer arrives, and by playing a game of 



488 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



dominoes in the saloon with the postmaster, and by voluntarily 
setting up the beer to his opponent in the game and to two other 
property-owners, strengthens the belief of the inhabitants that 
the place is not dead yet, and that it has a future before it. 

Darkness draws her curtain over the scene, and we retire to 
pass the night on a straw mattress, in the society of some very 
sociable insects. These are the most exciting incidents of a 
day spent in a Texas village. 




PICKEl^ DUTY, 



489 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



^-\ 



'^■K^-'^.'. 








^1 S the shades of night were be- 
ginning to fall, we resumed 
our march [' Thank Heav- 
en ! ' murmurs the doctor], 
and just after dark we came 
to a large frame-house in the 
middle of the prairie," said the 
reporter, continuing his story 
the next morning. " We ap- 
proached it very carefully, 
thinking that possibly Yan- 
kees might be concealed in it, 
and shoot at us. Men who 
would leave empty oyster-cans 
and whiskey-bottles lying around 
loose, to discourage a noble foe, 
would do almost any thing mean. 
As soon as we found that there was 
no tnemy in the neighborhood, we 
took possession of the house. There 
were a number of roads leading out from 
Indianola ; and our business was to 
2:uard them, and see that the Yankees did 
not pull them in, and carry them off on 
their gunboats. 

"The sergeant took us down to the fork 
of the road. He drew us up in line, and 
said, ' You two men will stay right here until daylight ; then 



' fu 'J 



490 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

you will come back in good order to my headquarters at the 
house. If you perceive two or three Yankees, you will halt 
them, take them prisoner, and bring them to headquarters. If 
more than that number come along, you will fire on them, and 
fall back. Keep a good lookout ; for, if they find us here, they 
may try and cut us off from the bridge. Remember, the Con- 
federacy expects every man to lift his end of the log.' And so 
saying, the sergeant went off, and left us all alone, within an 
uncomfortably short distance of a town full of Yankee soldiers, 
who were full of sardines and old rye. I turned to my com- 
panion to hold a council of war. Said I, — 

** ' Jim, don't you forget the orders, and be careful not to get 
them mixed. If two or three men come out, we are to arrest 
them, and show them where the sergeant is ; but, if a whole 
brigade comes out, we must fall back before they can cut us off 
from the bridge. We must be careful not to capture them, for 
we couldn't afford to feed them. We are not to show them 
any quarters, not even headquarters. We must be careful not 
to capture any thing bigger than a company. I wonder how 
much longer this cruel war is going to last.' " 

" I wonder ! " said the doctor, stretching himself. 

'' My comrade, Jim Neal, did not respond. He was a very 
peculiar sort of a fellow. He did not mess with the other boys, 
but off by himself, as far as possible from the rest of the com- 
mand. He was a kind of military hermit. There were strange 
rumors in camp about Jim. It was said that his conscience 
troubled him ; that in the early days of the war, when Union 
men were hung on general principles and live-oak limbs, Jim 
Neal had played a prominent part in the massacres, having 
murdered a number of men with his own hand, and that he was 
troubled with bad dreams in consequence. He disturbed his 
comrades by yelling and shrieking in the middle of the night, 
and was always, on such occasions, pointing out an old German 
with his throat cut, whom nobody but himself could see. This 
was the common rumor about Jim Neal, and no one ever ex- 
pressed any doubt about its correctness. On this occasion, as 
usual, Jim was not disposed to be communicative. I proposed 
that he stand guard one half the night, and I the other ; to which 



"/r'^ WORSE THAN A COYOTE:' 491 

he answered, that it would be healthier for both of us if we staid 
awake all night. I did not think it at all healthy, and objected. 
He said that I could do as I pleased : he would stand guard all 
night, because he was afraid the Yankees might surprise us. 

'' It was evident to me, that, in spite of the theory that any 
number of Yankees would run at the sight of one Confederate, 
Jim was not inclined to take that view of it. He was scared. 
It was a clear, starlight night, and the weather was quite mild. 
Jim was never quiet an instant. At one moment he would be 
on his horse reconnoitring ; the next he would be lying with 
his ear to the ground, trying to detect the approach of an 
imaginary foe. As he went on guard first, at about twelve 
o'clock, I spread out my blanket, and went to sleep near my 
horse. Because Jim did not sleep, I did not propose to stay 
awake to entertain him. I had slept about an hour, when he 
awoke me. He whispered hoarsely, ' There is a man prowling 
around here ! his intention is to murder us. I've seen him half 
a dozen times : he is watching for a chance.' 

*'In a moment I had my carbine ready, and was peering in 
the direction indicated. Jim was glaring like a terrified animal, 
but I could not see the man. Jim laid his clammy hand on 
mine, and, pointing in another direction, whispered through his 
clinched teeth , ' Now you see him, don't you .? ' 

" I fairly strained my eyes, but could see nothing. ' See the 
horses ! ' he whispered. The horses certainly had pricked up 
their ears, and were both looking in the same direction. I 
said, ' It's only a coyote they see.' Jim shook his head in a 
mournful way, and said, ' It's worse than a coyote.' 

*' Sleep was out of the question. Never did I see such mor- 
tal terror. He told me he had seen the man a dozen times that 
night. Said he, 'They had no business putting me on picket- 
duty. The Yankees will hang me if they catch me.' 

'' Then I knew what was the matter with the poor wretch. 
He was haunted by some of his victims. Perhaps it was the 
old white-bearded German, whose throat Jim had cut, who was 
prowling about. It was not very far from daylight when he 
lay down, and appeared to be asleep. He was worn out, and 
had become calmer, as the ghostly visitor had not put in an 



492 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

appearance for almost an hour. The moon arose, and threw 
her cold rays on the sleeping man's face. Whether it was the 
effect of the moonlight on his face, or whether it was his con- 
science, I do not know ; but he soon began to moan, and his 
features assumed their usual troubled expression. * There was 
no need of cutting his throat,' he muttered : * he would have 
died, anyhow.' Suddenly, with a horrified shriek, he started 
to his feet, and, pointing* with quivering fingers, said, 'There 
he comes again ! See his red beard ! It is blood that makes 
it red.' 

" * For Heaven's sake, Jim, if you see any thing, shoot it,' I 
said. 

" * He is gone now, but he will be back. I've seen him often 
before, but never like that, — never so close before. He never 
laughed as he does to-night. He laughs because he knows I 
am going to be shot or hung. I told the captain they should 
not send me on picket-duty.' 

" It was now nearly daylight. The houses in Indianola could 
be faintly perceived. Jim's scare was over : it fled with the 
darkness. But now real enemies occupied his attention. He lay 
a moment with his ear to the ground ; then, springing to his feet, 
he tightened the girth of his saddle. ' Hurry up ! ' he said : ' they 
are beating the long roll. The cavalry will come out ahead of 
us, and cut us off from the bridge. There they are now ! ' 

"A moment more, and we were bounding over the grassy 
prairie toward the picket-station. The dark points on the 
horizon were Federal cavalry. They saw us, and were trying 
to get between us and the bridge. Although, probably, the 
enemy was well mounted, the chances were in our favor, as we 
were nearer the bridge in a straight line. Nevertheless, the 
Yankees gained on us ; and, as the bridge appeared in sight, 
they were not far behind us. 

" * Throw off your blue overcoat, or some of our own men 
will shoot us,' said my comrade. (Some of us had Federal 
overcoats in those days.) We dropped our overcoats, clattered 
over the bridge, and were in the midst of our own men." 

" Before you go any farther, I want to know what became of 
Jim Neal," said the doctor. 



CAPT. DICK TAYLOR. 493 

"Dead!" responded the reporter. ''He had a flock of 
sheep after the war ; herded them by himself out on the Nue- 
ces. His mutilated body was found in his camp. He had 
been shot in the head ; but whether by his own hand or not, 
nobody knows." 

"All right," said the doctor. "Now let the carnage at 

Norris's Bridge proceed." 

"There were about forty of us ; and, as we could see at least 
three thousand infantry and a battery of artillery all coming 
rapidly in the direction of the bridge, it became very evident 
that something unpleasant was going to happen. As for the 
cavalry that chased us, they went back in a hurry ; for, as soon 
as they got within two hundred yards of the bridge, a volley 
was fired at them which relieved them of any doubts as to our 
being militia, armed with shotguns. Our men were running to 
and fro, and everybody was asking where the captain was. He 
had gone to Lavacca the night before, to buy some flat plug to- 
bacco,— an unaccustomed and much-prized luxury with us then. 
" The man on top of the house reported the Yankees still 
steering in our direction, whereupon several suggested an im- 
mediate adjournment. The suggestion would have been acted 
upon, had our captain, Dick Taylor, not appeared on the scene 
■ at that critical moment. He rode a large horse, and was 
dressed in an attractive buckskin suit, in the breast-pocket of 
which was exposed a plug of flat tobacco. We supposed, of 
course, that he would instruct us to retreat in as quick order as 
possible. Imagine our horror and dismay, when, excitedly tak- 
ing a large bite off the end of the tobacco plug, he raised him- 
self up in his stirrups, and said, 'Fall in, boys. The war's 
been going on for three years, and we have not had a chance 
to smdl gunpowder yet. Over in San Antonio they say we 
ain't anxious to meet the enemy. We will show them that it's 
a durn lie. I am not going to sacrifice life, or wade in human 
gore ; but we will stay right here, and stand a few shells, any- 
how. There ain't much danger until they get the range.' 

" We looked at each other with blanched cheeks. To add to 
our misery, the long black line, composed of Federal infantry, 
was becoming every moment a more prominent feature in the 



494 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



landscape. The man on top of the house calmed us down 
somewhat by calling out that there were four guns in the 
battery, and they were coming at a gallop. 

" Sergeant Jones, who had seen service in Virginia, gazed on 
the advancing Federals, and said, 'This begins to look like 




CAPT. DICK TAYLOR. 



business. In about ten minutes half of us will be lying about 
promiscuously without heads or legs. Some of us never will 
be found again. Up in Virginia I saw a shell from a battery, 
just like that one that's coming, that burst inside of a fellow, 
and we never did find any thing of him but a few odds and 
ends up in the top of a tree.' 



THE CARNAGE AT NORRIS'S BRIDGE. 495 

" We knew the worst now, and began to be reconciled to the 
inevitable. Our fool-captain was as scared as any of us, but 
he tried to hide it. He was prancing up and down, in front of 
us, behind us, and amongst us ; and every once in a while he 
would pull out that plug of flat tobacco, and rend it with his 
teeth like a mule at a bundle of fodder. He kept biting off 
tobacco and giving commands at the same time. ' Don't leave, 
boys,' he said. (Some of them were getting on their horses.) 

* Don't leave until we have had a shot, anyhow. We cannot 
expect to defeat the enemy, but we can let 'em shell us a while. 
I'll shoot down the first man who starts to run before I do.' 

" Then he struggled with a fresh bite of tobacco ; and, wiping 
the enthusiasm off his brow with his sleeve, he continued, 

* The war has been going on for three years, and we haven't 
even a wooden leg amongst us to prove it by. We've got to 
stand some shelling, so that they will quit making fun of us in 
San Antonio.' 

"■ ' Come down off that horse ! ' he bawled out, as a young 
Israelite from Austin tried to mount." 

" Of a truth, the battle now begins to rage," said the doctor. 

"We were all stationed behind a fence, which was not high 
or thick enough for such an emergency. On one side of me 
was Sergeant Jones, the Virginia veteran, while on the other 
was Sam McWhorter. The latter was a typical cowboy. He 
was red-headed, ignorant, freckled, and good-natured. He did 
not seem to know what fear was, as he was fully under the in- 
fluence of the popular belief that one Confederate could chase 
a regiment of Yankees. He had heard so much about this, 
that he implicitly believed it. Sam could not read or write, 
but he had a mouth large enough to make up for all physical 
and educational deficiency. He stood there behind the cedar* 
rail-fence, grinning, and fairly aching to receive the order to 
chase the Yankees back. He said he wondered they were not 
afraid to come so close. 

" All at once a battery dashed up at full gallop, on a slight 
elevation four hundred yards distant, and wheeled around to 
bring the guns to bear, on us. Just then Sam McWhorter 
diverted my thoughts from the enemy and from Capt. Dick 



496 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Taylor, who continued to prance about, and exhort his soldiers 
to have patience. Sam saw the horses turn to bring the guns 
to bear on us. When he noticed the movement, he thought 
that the Yankees had got frightened, and were going back to 
Indianola ; and he could not repress his exultant emotions. As 

soon as he saw the 
horses turn, he took 
off his hat, and began 
to cheer vociferous- 
ly, ' Hurrah for the 
Southern Confedera- 
cy ! Hurrah for Jeff 
Davis ! ' and catching 
a glimpse of our gal- 
lant captain, who was 
now sitting boldly on 
his horse, with his 
eyes shut, either say- 
ing his prayers or 
waiting for some- 
thing to burst, Sam 
whooped once more, 
' Hurrah for Capt. 
Dick Taylor! Hur- 
rah for ' — 

''I had my eye riv- 
eted on the enemy's 
guns. They were now 
very much depressed, 
but not more than I 

"HURRAH FOR THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY!" WaS. JUSt aS Sam WaS 

swinging his hat, and 
stretching his mouth to its utmost capacity, there was a puff of 
smoke in front of the battery, and a shell went screaming, like 
a demon with a cold in his head, about four feet above Sam's 
red head. He was not looking at the battery : he thought* it 
was on its way back to Indianola. He had his mouth so much 
-expanded, encouraging some great southern leader with his 




SHELLING. 497 

! cheers, that his eyes were shut when the shell howled past him. 

)-. He suddenly opened his eyes, and gave a side-glance at me, so 

^ mournfully ludicrous that it made me laugh in spite of the 

seriousness of the situation. The red bristles on his head 

were standing straight up on end. His mouth was shut now ; 

while his eyes, which rolled about in an alarming manner, were 

protruding like door-knobs. He never afterwards got back his 

natural expression. The look of terror was frozen into his 

features. He was never able to part his hair again. 

I "There was not much time, however, to enjoy the scene. 

Two more puffs of smoke, a cloud of dust appeared in the 

j rear, and simultaneously about twenty feet of fence was 

spread over the adjacent country. The sergeant who had 

seen service in Virginia rested his rifle on the fence, and fired. 

' The horse of the only mounted man about the battery reared, 

and fell over backwards. It was a four-hundred-yard shot with 

a musket, — English Crown and Tower brand on it. We after- 

, wards learned that the officer who rode the horse was shot 

through the thigh, and died in a few hours. 

" Capt. Dick shouted, * That will do, durn you ! Get up and 
git, now.' There was really no occasion for any official orders 
on this subject, for half the men were already scampering over 
the prairie. Never was an order on the battlefield more cheer- 
fully obeyed. There was mounting in hot haste, for the two 
guns kept up a steady firing. By this time the infantry were 
within a few hundred yards, and the bullets of the skirmishers 
were assisting in making us wish the war was over. We 
adopted the Cossack plan of bewildering the enemy ; that is, 
we spread out suddenly in different directions. It is rather a 
difficult thing to hit a man two or three miles off on the prairie. 
They would have got some of us if we had not scattered. For- 
tunately for us, there was a herd of cows on a distant hill, that 
the Yankees mistook for part of our command. They trained 
two of the guns on the cattle while we were scattering. The 
cows, not having any more sense than we had, waited to be 
shelled. They staid there until the gunners got the range. 
We afterwards learned that the carnage was dreadful : tender- 
loin steaks and soup-bones were found scattered over the 
32 



498 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

country for miles. We rejoiced that none of us were hurt : 
we did not wish to add to the bitterness of the fratricidal 
struggle. 

"The shells continue'd to go over us as we ran. I rode 
alongside a lieutenant, who was urging his horse onward by 
patting it behind with his sabre. We were then three miles 
from the enemy. I asked him if the day was hot enough for 
him. He shook his sabre at me, and said, 'Disperse, you 
damned fool ! Keep away from me. Don't you know if we 
mass our troops the enemy will concentrate his artillery-fire or 
us .? Deploy to the right, the farther the better.' 

*'We afterwards rallied on a creek six miles farther back, 
and made it our future base of operations." 

" Did you suffer any loss at all t " inquired the doctor. 

** Yes. One man belonging to Company C had a large cat- 
fish staked out in the bayou. He lost it, owing to the rapid 
advance of the enemy. But nobody was killed or wounded, 
owing to the rapidity with which we carried out the Cossack 
tactics. When Gen. Warren came over the bridge at the head 
of his victorious army, after we had fallen back, he made in- 
quiry as to what troops we were. He said we were either very 
brave men, or the grandest fools in the whole western hemi- 
sphere. We felt very much complimented when we heard this. 
The idea of forty men trying to hold a bridge against three 
thousand infantry and a battery of artillery seemed to him as 
something out of the usual order of things." 

" I hope, after that, the San Antonio papers quit insinuating 
that you were not anxious to prolong the war," remarked the 
doctor. 

"Yes : Capt. Dick Taylor and his men were fully vindicated. 
There was a long account of the battle in the San Antonio 
* Herald,' under the head of 'Desperate Engagement.' It 
went on to say that an army of five thousand hirelings, with a 
park of artillery, was kept in check for hours by Capt. Dick 
Taylor and twenty men, at Norris's Bridge, and that the loss in- 
flicted on the Federals was heavy. It related how vast masses 
of troops were hurled in vain on the little band of heroes. 
It spoke of how Capt. Taylor and his men fell back slowly. 




/' 'Cl 






PIP' -r^llPI''^^ 






Li 















;^^4' ^'.^ 




BAD OLD MEN, 499 

like lions at bay, disputing every half-inch of ground with the 
overwhelming foe, and made comparisons in which Horatio 
and the brave days of old were alluded to. It stated that Capt. 
Dick Taylor was conspicuous for his bravery and a new buck- 
skin jacket that he wore, both of which caused the concentra- 
tion of the artillery-fire on his person, twenty-seven shells 
being hurled at him in quick succession. It concluded by say- 
ing, ' The spirit shown by our troops must convince the authori- 
ties at Washington of the utter hopelessness of subjugating a 
proud and haughty people.' " 

**What could possibly have caused the people of San Anto- 
nio, in the first place, to suspect that you were not all ready to 
die for the Confederacy .'' " asked the doctor. 

" I'll tell you how that was. The country is perfectly flat 
about Indianola. You can see a man two or three miles off. 
There is frequently a mirage down there, when a pond looks 
like a house on fire, and three or four men on horseback like 
a circus-pageant. A cow standing under a tree resembles a 
group of pre-Adamic monsters with their tails curled up over 
their backs. One morning we saw the whole town of Lavacca, 
six miles distant, hanging upside down in the sky. Sometimes 
these optical illusions did not inspire us with confidence. Once 
we ran before a mirage for several hours. It was only a cabal- 
lado of horses grazing on the prairie, and distorted by atmos- 
pheric influences. That story got to San Antonio. 

''Again, we had to do picket-duty in squads of five or six; 
and we used to make signals to each other by riding off to one 
side, and raising our hands. At the same time, doing picket- 
duty, there was a company of old flop-ears. By that term is 
meant sinful old men, who were too old to be conscripted, but 
who went into the war, anyhow. They were old Texas vet- 
erans, who could not be kept at home when there was a fight 
or a barbecue unless you sawed off their legs. They were 
destroying- the government of the United States on their own 
responsibility. Those bad old men, who ought to have been 
at home studying their Bibles, were continually prowling about 
the fortifications with shotguns, watching for Yankees, with 
the intention of doing them serious bodily injury. Whenever 



500 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



a party of Yankees came out to get fresh beef, these vicious 
old warriors would be very apt to make it unpleasant for them. 
As these irregular troops did not know our signals on the 
prairies, the consequence was, we were never sure, when we 
saw them at a distance, whether they were Federals or not. 
So we gave them the benefit of the doubt, and got out of their 
way. They usually outnumbered us, too, and would pursue us 




BAD OLD MEN. 



across the plains into camp. 
When they found out that 
they were chasing Confed- 
erate soldiers, they would 
make humble apologies for 
the mistake, saying that we 
ran like Yankees ; but you 
could see that the old sin- 
ners knew all the time that we were not Yankees. Why, a lot 
of those degraded mummies chased a detachment of men from 
Company A, the crack company, thirty-seven miles one day, 
they thinking we were Yankees, and we thinking the same of 
them. It took us four days to get back, on our exhausted war- 
steeds. I know all about it, for I was one of the sufferers. I 
could not walk for a whole week afterwards. Every day, 
almost, those miserable dolts were chasing our men. The 
news of their absurd antics got into the San Antonio papers ; 



THE POPULAR CAPTAIN. 501 

and as the editors had a spite at everybody who was in the 
tented field, while they were themselves safe from Federal shot 
and shell, invidious editorial remarks were made. The captain 
was complimented by receiving marked copies of the paper 
containing these calumnies ; and, being naturally of a proud 
nature, he chafed under them. So you see, when the Federal 
army hove in sight, two thousand strong, with a battery, our 
captain determined to refute the vile slanders by acting as if he 
were anxious for us to lay down our lives for the cause, relying 
on the well-known fact, that the gunner has to miss several 
times before he can get the range. He did not like it himself, 
however, and said confidentially afterwards that he had no idea 
of the risk he was taking, and that, if getting away from a 
battery was connected with so much danger, he hoped he would 
never be called on to get away with a battery. We sustained 
him in this position to a man. He became very popular after- 
wards. We would have gone through fire and water for him if 
he had required it, but it was a comfort to think that he would 
never make any such demand." 
The doctor was asleep. 



502 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 




live five 



E vi^ere now in what is called the 
Indian country ; and we occasion- 
ally met a squad of rangers scout- 
ing after the Indians, but we did 
not meet any Indians. 

Of the numerous Indian tribes 
that once inhabited Texas, some 
have become extinct, or have 
been incorporated with other 
tribes, and have thus lost their 
identity. The Wacoes, for in- 
stance, once a leading tribe, are 
not heard of now. All the 
friendly Indians, with the excep- 
^ tion of a few miserable specimens 
scattered along the Trinity River, 
have entirely disappeared — civilized 
and reconstructed — off the face of 
the earth. The Muscogees, Alabamas, 
and Coashattas, said to have been 
branches of the great Creek nation, were 
the tribes known as "friendly" Indians 
in Texas fifty years ago, 

A friendly Indian is one who does not make 

a business of scalping the superior race ; one 

; \ ' who only kills his white benefactors at such odd 

Y times as he can safely and conveniently lay the 

\ blame on some one else. A friendly Indian will 

to ten years on the best of terms with his neighbors ; 



BIG-FOOT WALLACE, 



503 



that is, he will borrow all the cornmeal he needs, steal what 
pork he requires, and beg enough firewater to keep him mellow. 
Then, when he has sufficiently demonstrated his friendly dis- 
position, he will select a favorable opportunity, and, assisted by 
his relatives, also amiable Indians, will murder and outrage all 
the whites in the settlement. Then he disappears, taking with 
him the settlers' horses, and becomes a bad Indian for a time, 
keeping away from the busy haunts of men until his gnawing 
conscience (which is situated in his stomach) forces him to go 
to the reserva- 
tion and draw 
rations. There a 
paternal govern- 
m e n t, through 
its pious agents, 
pardons all of- 
fences, blesses 
him, and re- 
wards him for 
his friendly dis- 
position with a 
blanket and a 
repeating - rifle. 
Thus does the 
poor, untutored 
savage, the last 
of a doomed and 

dying race, appeal to the Eastern humanitarian, who has never 
had the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with his 
many virtues. 

We camped one night with Big-Foot Wallace, the noted 
scout and Indian fighter. After listening for hours to his tales 
of frontier life, adventures with Indians, etc., I asked him if 
he had ever known any really good Indians, — honest, truthful 
Indians, who paid one hundred cents on the dollar to those who 
believed in their nobility of character. 

"Young man," replied he, " I never trust no Injun unless he 
is at the business end of this 'ere iron," — and he tapped signifi- 




BIG-FOOT WALLACE. 



504 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

cantly the stock of his long Kentucky rifle, where forty-seven 
notches could be counted; ''for snakes is snakes, and Injuns 
is Injuns." 

Whenever a superior race sends out zealous missionaries to 
civilize and christianize the heathen, the latter should lose no 
time in selling out and moving away. If the simple-minded 
heathen do not leave before the arrival of the blessings with 
which they are threatened, all that is left for them to do is to 
make their wills. There are usually some obstinate unbeliev- 
ers, who manage to prolong their existence and that of their 
race by fleeing to the mountains. The good, docile native, 
who submitted to the priests, owing to the improved fire-arms 
of the soldiers who accompanied the missionaries, is no longer 
to be found about his favorite haunts. His descendants are 
equally scarce. The Indies rediicidos only exist in the dim 
and misty legends of the past. They twang a harp in a land 
that is fairer than this. But the Indian who objected to being 
reduced, who did not want to go to heaven on the terms offered 
by the Spanish monks, has descendants still living who twang 
a lively bow in the frontier counties of Western Texas, even 
unto this day, and who often revisit the scenes where their 
ancestors once were in affluent circumstances, owned nearly 
all the real estate, and objected to having any but their own 
language taught in the public schools. Once in a while they 
develop a bloodthirsty spirit that would excite the admiration 
of the old Spaniards, who, if they could only revisit the glimpses 
of the moon, would be stimulated to escape back to their graves 
at a high rate of speed. 

The wild Indian, although reduced in number, is in all other 
respects as good as new. He has, on several occasions, very 
nearly succeeded in bringing on a war between the United 
States and Mexico ; and he keeps a large frontier in a constant 
state of uncertainty as to whom the stock and scalps of the 
hardy frontiersmen really belong. It very frequently happens, 
that while the Texas frontiersman is the de jure owner of his 
scalp, horses, etc., the Indian from the other side of the Rio 
Grande is the owner de facto. 

The past history of the western frontier is nothing more nor 



COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. 505 

less than the history of one unending Indian war. In former 
days the inhabitants of San Antonio were hterally besieged by 
hostile Indians. For many years past, the Indians have been 
unable to maintain themselves in Texas. They have their 
places of business over in Mexico, in the Santa Rosa Moun- 
tains, but send out travelling-agents to transact business with 
the Texans. The Indian drummers travel at night, visiting 
their customers during every full moon. 

When Gen. Ord was appointed commander of the department 
of Texas, in 1874, he seriously interfered with the commercial re- 
lations previously existing between the Indians and the Texans. 

The raiders from Mexico into Texas, whose exploits are 
known to all who can borrow a newspaper, are, for the most 
part, Indians of the Kickapoo, Mescalero, and Lipan tribes, 
with a sprinkling of the more adventurous of the Mexicans, 
who unite the natural predisposition to steal horses with the 
physical activity to do so. They usually enter Texas near 
the mouth of Devil's River, one hundred and sixty miles west 
of San Antonio. 

The stealing of horses has, of late years, been principally 
confined to that portion of the Rio Grande, and is the chief 
industry of the country. The Indians and Mexicans form 
joint-stock companies for the transfer of live-stock from Texas 
to Mexico. The Mexicans furnish the whiskey, ammunition, 
jerked beef, and other supplies necessary for the expedition. 
The Indians steal the horses, and bring them to the Mexican 
market. The result of these commercial ventures, when the 
partners balance up and divide the profits, is, that the Indians 
have the experience, and the Mexicans have the horses. When 
brought to account for having stolen horses in their possession, 
the Mexicans magnanimously lay all the blame on their wicked 
partners, the Indians. If the Indians ever soar up to such a 
degree of civilization that they can publish a card, they, too, 
will have something to say on the subject of wicked partners. 
There is no doubt about the complicity of the leading Mexi- 
cans of some of the frontier towns ; for, when a raiding band is 
completely wiped out of existence by the exasperated Texans, 
the principal stores in the town are closed up on a twenty-cent- 



506 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

on-the-dollar basis, and the various local societies publish long 
resolutions about ** it having pleased the all-wise Providence to 
remove hence our brother, while absent on a trip for the benefit 
of his health." 

When it comes to dividing out the responsibility for raids 
into Texas, it is unjust to deprive the Mexican of his full share. 
The home of the Indian, as the term is applicable to the great 
original, or rather aboriginal tramp, is in the midst of the 
mountains of that vast unexplored territory south of the mouth 
of Devil's River in Mexico. It is in this rugged country that 
the Indian, after first catching his horses, conceals them and 
himself from the sight of the Texas rangers. The Indians do 
not live here permanently. They sometimes leave the moun- 
tain fastnesses, and camp near the Mexican towns ; but of late 
years they have been regarded as dangerous neighbors. When 
the Indian cannot find, a white man to rob and murder, he is 
satisfied, on the half-a-loaf principle, with a Mexican. If, how- 
ever, the Mexican refuses to' be murdered, the Indians are 
thrown on their own resources, and perform the kindly offices 
of murdering each other. 

Until the trade in stealing Texas stock was broken up, the 
friendship between the Indians and Mexicans was like unto 
that of Jonathan and Pythias. There exists another reason 
why, for several years past, the Indians have been disagreeable 
neighbors. Gen. Mackenzie, of the United-States army, made 
several trips across the Rio Grande after Indian raiders ; and 
the result was such that the Mexicans perceived that the 
Indians were unprofitable neighbors to have just at the time 
when Mackenzie dropped in to see them. As there was no 
telling when he might not make another pastoral call, the Mexi- 
cans preferred that the Indians go off some distance by them- 
selves to avoid misunderstandings. It was the old story about 
poor Tray being found in bad company ; although in this in- 
stance it would be difficult to say which was Tray, and which 
the bad company. 

The Kickapoos and Lipans are absolutely unhampered with 
prejudice as to color, and have frequently shown a perfect will- 
ingness to scalp a Mexican on terms of social equality. 



FALLING BACK. 507 

The country where the Indians recuperate, after their raids 
into Texas, is very much Hke certain portions of Vermont, 
where the owners of the choice lands are compelled by law to 
fence them in to prevent cattle from straying on them and 
starving to death. This vast area of ten thousand square miles 
is marked on all maps of Mexico as terra desconocido. Even 
the elaborate maps prepared by the Austrian and French engi- 
neers during the days of the ill-starred empire contain a blank 
space marked "unexplored." 

To properly appreciate and understand the situation on the 
frontier, it should be borne in mind that horses and cattle are 
extremely scarce in Mexico. The great national pastime and 
recreation of the Mexicans have been ab initio revolutions. 
Revolutions are very severe on horses. Solomon mentions that 
a horse is prepared for safety ; and, as safety is the first thing 
that enters the mind of the Mexican when a revolutionary fight 
begins, it will be seen at once that a horse is just the thing to 
fall back on. "Falling back" is the most important strategic 
movement practised by revolutionary Mexicans : hence there is 
a great deal of wear and tear in horseflesh. When the "lurid 
glare of revolution " overspreads the land, thousands of horses 
are ridden to death by the different revolutionary bands while 
making their escape from each other. 

This violent horseback-exercise gives tone to the stomach ; 
and the revolutionist, after riding hurriedly ten or twenty miles 
to secure a strong, strategic position in the rear, always has a 
ravenous appetite, and the digestive ability of an anaconda. 

It would seem as if the revolutionary portion of the people 
get up popular upheavals for no other purpose than to have an 
excuse to ride other people's horses, and feed on strange beef. 

The Mexican must have a pony to prance on. What is a 
caballero on foot but a palpable absurdity t Right across the 
shallow Rio Grande are thousands of horses belonging to the 
heretic Gringo tribes, to steal from whom is an act patriotic, 
and pleasing in the sight of high Heaven. There are also herds 
of fat cattle, suggestive of juicy steaks, all grazing on the rich 
soil of Texas, which properly belonged to Mexico, anyhow. 

Between the Mexican receiver and the Indian thief, there 



5o8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

are not those harmonious relations that are supposed to exist 
among people of their class and profession. The merchants 
flatter themselves, that as they furnish the social status, so to 
speak, of the firm of Hidalgo, Lo, & Co., they ought to be 
entitled to the lion's share of the profits. The Indians, on the 
other hand, are of the opinion that they ought to have most 
of the proceeds of their toil. They have a great deal of trouble 
and annoyance in pursuing their calling, occasioned by the heart- 
less brutality and unaccommodating disposition of the Texas 
stock-raisers. 

Although the Texans know when to expect the Indian tra- 
ders, — that is, at the full of the moon, — yet they do not keep up 
their stock in the pen, in order to facilitate matters, and pre- 
serve fraternal relations with Mexico. On the contrary, some 
of the Texans go so far as to drive off their stock to points 
where the Indians are put to unnecessary pains in finding them. 
This unreasonable conduct of the Texas frontiersmen gives the 
Indians much extra trouble, which they think ought to be taken 
into consideration by the Mexican merchant in settlement. 

Again: utterly unmindful of consequences, the Texans have 
sometimes pursued Lo ; and he, like the chief of Ulva's Isle 
when he was on a similar expedition after Lord Ullin's daugh- 
ter, had to be very expeditious : for horsemen hard behind him 
rode ; and, if they caught up with him before he crossed the Rio 
Grande, — that dark and stormy water, — the chances were that 
his blood would stain the heather. 

Lo wanted these risks paid for, but the Mexican merchant 
esteemed them lightly. 

Strikes were of frequent occurrence. Then the Mexican 
merchants undertook to supply the places of the striking In- 
dians by hiring Mexican thieves. But these were not skilled 
artisans, like the Indians. They were good enough at reaching 
through a window with a long pole, and lifting out a pair of trou- 
sers ; but when it came to the higher branches of the profession, 
such as riding a thousand miles in ten days, stealing two hun- 
dred head of horses, killing and scalping twenty or thirty 
persons, and getting back in safety, the new hands were not 
equal to the emergency. 



ORDERS IN ADVANCE. 



509 



■ To raid into Texas from Mexico, steal the number of horses 
requisite to make the adventure a success from a pecuniary 
pomt of view, and return to Mexico in advance of the pursuu^g 
Texas ran-ers, is an undertaking of considerable magnitude. 
It demand" several weeks of incessant hard riding and expo- 




A MOONLIGHT EXCURSION FROM MEXICO. 



sure to the sun. It is also fraught with much danger. Occa- 
sionally the Texas stockman happens to be at home when the 
raider calls, and the consequences are unpleasant to contem- 
plate The tough, wiry Kickapoos and Lipans, by changmg 
horses, -which^hey have permitted the Texas stockmen to 
furnish for the occasion, — will get over an incredible quantity 



5IO ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

of ground in a short time, and drive a large herd of horses 
before them, shooting down those that give out. When over- 
taken they will fight to the death, with the fury of ancient 
crusaders ; but they are seldom overtaken, for the reason that 
they always get a good start before the settlers in the thinly 
•populated frontier counties can get together. Their views as 
to the right of property may be best described as, — 

"The simple plan 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

On the eastern border of the unexplored region already 
described are a number of small Mexican towns, — San Fer- 
nando, Santa Rosa, and Saragossa. The only legitimate busi- 
ness or trade carried on in these towns — which otherwise are 
too dull to be called cemeteries — is the traffic in stock stolen 
from Texas. The Indians formerly resided in the suburbs of 
these towns ; but after Gen. Mackenzie gave them that sur- 
prise-party at Pamolina, killing some, and taking a large number 
prisoners, they removed to the mountains. There are, in all, 
about five or six hundred families who thus prefer the more salu- 
brious atmosphere of the mountains, where the United-States 
cavalry cannot penetrate. These aborigines do all their trad- 
ing, procure their supplies, and get drunk, at the Httle towns 
referred to. 

When the Indian settles with the Mexican, on his return from 
a raid, he is generously allowed to invest his capital in the Mexi- 
can merchant's private monte-bank. 

So great is the demand for horses in Mexico, that these fron- 
tier merchants have orders six months in advance. A rich 
official in some town of the interior will order a pair of Ameri- 
can carriage-horses. Some fast young man in the city of Mon- 
terey will send in his order for a riding-horse; while another 
will describe the color of horse he wants, and even insist on the 
animal being of the brand of some well-known Texan, who is 
celebrated for keeping fine stock. As an evidence of the open 
and shameless way that this traffic is carried on, I quote the 
following trade-circular from the house of Pendejo & Sinvergu- 
enzo, of Santa Rosa: — 



A BUSINESS-CARD. 511 



FINE IMPORTED STOCK. 

The undersigned, having engaged the professional services of Asarte, 
the celebrated Lipan horse-merchant, who has had more experience in 
selecting and importing fine stock from Texas than any other stockman 
on the frontier, are now in a condition to supply their friends with all. 
classes of horses. Fresh consignments received every full moon. The 
most improved breed from the ranchos of leading Texas stock-raisers. 
Come and examine the brands for yourself. See our stock before deal- 
ing elsewhere. 

Branch offices at Saragossa and all other towns on the Texas frontier. 
A liberal discount to the trade. Two hundred agents t^anted. 

PeNDJEO & SiNVERGUENZO. 

By referring to the map, a range of hills may be perceived, 
extending from near the mouth of Devil's River to the vicinity 
of San Antonio. Without the cover afforded by these hills, 
raiding in Texas would be almost impossible. The hills, and 
the country adjacent to them, are utterly uninhabited : hence 
the Indians can traverse their entire length unobserved. Quite 
a number of streams take their rise on the south side of the 
hills referred to. Among others may be mentioned the Seco, 
Sabinal, Turkey Creek, and Blanco. None of them are navi- 
gable, at least, not above ground. During dry seasons most 
of the streams are reduced to a succession of mud-puddles. 

When the Indians have agreed as to the percentage they are 
to be allowed by the Mexicans, they cross the Rio Grande in 
squads of three or four, and rendezvous in the mountains, 
preparatory to descending into the valleys for the purpose of 
administering on the estates of the stockmen they may kill. 

Right here, perhaps, it would be proper for me, before turn- 
ing these Indians loose to commit all kinds of deviltry, to de- 
scribe just what kind of villains these red men are, as there 
seems to be some confusion in the public mind on that score. 

He was a tall, sour-looking man from the Pecos, and he was 
gazing with interest on the newly painted Indian of a San 
Antonio tobacco-store. 

''That ain't like no Indian," he muttered. 



512 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



''What did you say ? " asked the tobacconist, who was proud 
of his sign. 

" I said it was not a damn bit like an Indian." 

"My friend," said the tobacconist, ''you are not near enough 




NOT A DAMN BIT LIKE AN INDIAN 



to It. Step up and examine it closely, and you will see the 
resemblance." 

"That is exactly what kills the resemblance," said the man 
from the Pecos; "for you never can get near the real Indian 



INDIANS. 513 

when you are looking for him, and he does not care to let you 
examine him too closely." 

The Fenimore-Cooper Indian, and, in fact, all kinds of Indians 
that have been sighted at long range by the writers of fiction, 
are provided with a noble presence and a pensive cast of coun- 
tenance. The idea of an Indian without a noble presence is 
too absurd for any thing in the world ; and yet when we come 
to facts, and look at the Indian divested of the glamour of 
romance, unless he has it carefully concealed from view, he has 
no more noble presence than a grindstone has. The phrenolo- 
gist has discovered that the head of the Indian gives evidence 
of noble traits of character. There is no telling what might 
not be discovered if the phrenologist's scientific investigations 
were carried on with a fine comb; but it would not be noble 
traits — noble traits do not crawl. 

It is estimated that it costs the war department about half a 
million dollars for every Indian actually killed by the United- 
States troops. Would it not be cheaper to have dead Indians 
furnished by contract, the same as the other supplies needed 
to keep up the army t 

It is another wild and mildly idiotic delusion to suppose that 
the Indian goes about consumed away with a burning desire 
to revenge his wrongs on the white man. The Indian steals 
horses from the white man. This is not to quench a burning 
thirst for vengeance, but to get money to buy firewater with. 
It is true that he kills and scalps a few white men. This is 
merely to keep up his reputation. It may be said in his favor 
(and it is the noblest trait in his character), that he will scalp a 
Mexican with the same kindly spirit of accommodation. 

The Eastern sentimentalist sees a great deal to admire and 
reverence in the Indian ; and, the greater the distance between 
him and the savage, the more intense the admiration, while, 
on the other hand, those who have opportunity of seeing the 
Indian, and live in his neighborhood, fail to perceive his enno- 
bling virtues. Possibly, if the sentimentalist were placed in the 
same forty-acre field with the object of his admiration, the 
former, in order that he might not be robbed of his illusion, 
would make frantic efforts to create distance between them. 



514 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Every one seems anxious to have a good opinion of the Indian, 
for they do their best to keep out of his way. 

The Kickapoo, Lipan, Comanche, and other wild tribes in 
Mexico, do not differ materially from the Sioux. They are as 
much alike as one rotten ^gg is like another. They are never 
really reliable Indians until their immediate burial becomes an 
urgent sanitary measure. The Mexicans get along with their 
Indians much better than we do with ours. In the border 
states of Mexico the Indian is not permitted to lead a life of 
idleness and crime. He is required to conform to the manners 
and customs of the people among whom he has cast his lot. 
He is obliged to steal for a living, as the rest of the people do. 
The Indian, however, is not accorded all his civil rights in 
Mexico. The Mexicans may steal from each other, while they 
require the Indians to confine their commercial enterprise to 
the Texans on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. Race 
prejudices are still alive in Mexico. 

As already stated, the Indian in Mexico is not permitted to 
disgrace the community in which he resides by a life of honesty. 
As soon as a Lipan or Kickapoo allows a moon to wane without 
availing himself of its advantages to steal Texas horses, he is 
regarded by the Mexicans as a suspicious character, — one who 
will bear watching. He is given an opportunity to show that 
he has been stealing ; and, if he cannot vindicate himself, he is 
summarily dealt with as a public enemy. He can, however, 
re-instate himself in public esteem by bringing in a bunch of 
American horses, while the production of a blond scalp con- 
dones every honest transaction that the Indian may have been . 
accused of by malevolent enemies. 

Now, the system adopted by the Government of the United 
States in dealing with the Indian tribes is wholly different from 
that pursued by the Mexicans. The beauties of our system are 
not apparent at first, and have to be carefully studied before 
they can be appreciated. When a tribe of Indians, by a long 
series of murders and outrages, has established a reputation for 
ungovernable ferocity, it is placed on a reservation, the United- 
States Government agreeing to feed and clothe the Indians. 
The reservation is located in close proximity to a populous 



INDIAN A GENTS. 5 1 5 

part of the country. Many people do not understand the 
reason for this. There is a reason, although it is difficult to 
explain. With the beef, corn, and blankets that the govern- 
ment furnishes, it also furnishes the Indians with American 
philanthropists called agents. These agents are selected on 
account of their piety, and knowledge of the Indian's character 
and wants. Enemies of the government have insinuated that 
the agents have been selected for other reasons. The duties 
of an agent are to distribute the beef and blankets, and keep 
an eye on the Indians. These duties are so arduous and ex- 
haustive that the agent requires a vast quantity of beef and 
other supplies to preserve his own vitality. It is estimated 
that a full-grown and experienced Indian agent consumes about 
as much provisions and general supplies as five hundred healthy 
Indians. 

The agent, in furnishing the government with the Indians' 
board-bill, makes no deduction for lost time, or absence from 
meals. He charges for full time, and it is therefore to his 
interest to let the Indians go off whenever they want to. The 
agent furnishes them with rifles and ammunition, that they 
may pick up a precarious living in some neighborhood where 
supplies are plenty, and where there are no agents. 

At the outset I stated that it was difficult to explain why the 
government located the reservations near to populous districts, 
and I am afraid I have not given quite as lucid an explanation 
as I would wish. You see, the system is complicated, and a 
little out of joint. The plain fact is, that many of the reserva- 
tion Indians make raids on the northern frontier of Texas, as 
the Mexican Indians do on the western border. The people 
on whom they are thus encouraged to depredate are white 
American citizens, who have done nothing to deserve those 
blessings, except that they pay taxes to support the govern- 
ment. The department of the interior, which thus seeks to 
conciliate what there is left over of the white frontiersmen, 
receives immense sums from the public treasury to support 
these Indians. Even if we suppose that there is some excuse 
for the Indian being allowed to live, there is surely no excuse 
for allowing him to wantonly destroy the resources of his fel- 



5l6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

lovvman, who is so unfortunate as not to be a red man. It is 
not his fault that he is white : he was born that way. It is his 
misfortune, but he should not be punished for it. He is as 
much entitled to protection, being an American citizen, as if 
he were as dirty and debased as the greasiest Indian on the 
reservation. 

The government does not protect the frontier-settler ; although 
it taxes him for the support of the Indians, and for the guns, 
ammunition, and other agricultural implements, that are fur- 
nished to the Indians, and that are indispensable in carrying 
out our sagacious Indian policy. In the language of the gifted 
Dr. Watts, we are forced to exclaim, — 

" Can such things be, 
And overcome us like a summer cloud, 
Without our special wonder.^" 

There are two Indian reservations. Fort Sill and Fort Stan- 
ton, from which the Indians raid into Texas, and return with 
impunity and much stolen stock. That the Indians may not 
compete or interfere with each other in plundering the Texans, 
these reservations are located at different points on the Texas 
frontier. Nothing more distressing can be imagined than for 
wild Indians to engage in war with each other. By the reser- 
vations being placed very far apart, this shocking possibility is 
averted. The Fort-Stanton Comanches can murder a family 
in Kerr County, Tex., and drive off a herd of cattle and 
horses, without any risk of competition from the Fort-Sill 
Kiowas, who may be reconstructing a settlement on the north- 
ern frontier while Indians from Mexico are devastating the 
ranches in the southern part of Texas without awakening any 
feelings of resentment in the breasts of the Indian agents at 
Fort Sill and Fort Stanton ; the latter probably sacrificing 
themselves for the public good in drawing the rations that the 
Indians are supposed to consume. The stolen horses brought 
back by the Indians are in such demand, and the agent, per- 
haps out of pity for the red man, sometimes purchases them at 
figures that leave him but a bare margin of two or three hun- 
dred per cent. 



THE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 517 

Those who are disposed to think lightly of the sagacity of 
our Indian policy should take pains to inform themselves of 
some of these facts. The Fort-Sill Kiowas are very vigilant 
in preventing the Pan-Handle portion of Texas from being in- 
vaded by white settlers, who, if not interfered with, would toon 
have it covered with comfortable farms and ranches. There 

is quite a large force of 
soldiers at Fort Sill, who 
are placed there, as far 
as can be seen, for the 
purpose of spending their 
pay with the post-traders. 
It is difficult to obtain 
reliable statistics showino- 




" STARTLING INNOVATION ! -THE SAN ANTONIO STAGE NOT ROBBED!" 

which particular tribe has done the most in furthering what 
would seem to be the policy of the government. 

The Fort-Stanton Comanches have been very regular in rob- 
bing the United-States mail on the El Paso route, — so much 
so, that on one occasion, when the stage came in unmolested, 
the local paper headed a column on the subject, ''Startling 
Innovation ! — The San Antonio Stage not Robbed ! " 



5l8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

It will be seen, therefore, that the Texas frontier is liable to 
continual invasion from three directions. There is still a fourth 
side, which is not at present utilized. Those who have made 
our Indian policy a close study have never been able to fathom 
the mystery why the government does not establish a floating 
reservation of hostiles on the Gulf coast, so that the rich coun- 
try, heretofore inaccessible to the Indians, could be utilized in 
carrying out our Indian policy. 

The outrages committed by the Fort-Stanton Indians extend 
back for many years. Hundreds of white men have been 
killed, and thousands of cattle driven off ; but there is no rea- 
son to believe that either the authorities at Washington or the 
agent at Stanton have heard about it yet. On several occa- 
sions, scouts from Texas have trailed the marauders for five 
hundred miles to where they passed with the stolen stock 
within sight of the agent's house in the reservation. 

And yet in the Eastern States there is no end of sympathy 
expressed for the poor Indian. Sympathy is a very good thing 
if it is properly directed. The little boy, who, on being shown 
a picture of Daniel in the lions' den, burst into a flood of tears, 
had a warm, sympathetic heart. Amid choking sobs, he con- 
fessed that his anguish was caused by a dread that one of the 
smaller lions might not get a bite of the prophet. That was a 
case of misdirected sympathy. Will the friend of the noble 
child of the forest *' make the application " } as the preachers 
say. 

Before passing from this subject, I feel it a duty I owe the 
Kickapoo, to' state that he is the dirtiest Indian on earth. His 
sanitary condition is such, that he would require to be dressed 
in a clean shirt, and be fired out of a cannon loaded with car- 
bolic acid, before he would be fit to anchor at a quarantine 
station. 



INDIAN DEVILTRIES, 



519 



CHAPTER XXXVllI. 




HAVE been, at one 
time or another dur- 
ing the past few 
years, about forty per- 
sons murdered on the 
El Paso stage-line. It 
would be unjust to as- 
cribe these murders 
to the energy and zeal 
of anybody except the 
Fort - Stanton Indi- 
ans. The Indian 
agents put in a gen- 
eral denial. They 
claimed that no Tex- 
ans were murdered 
^ or robbed, and, more- 
over, that the Fort- 
Stanton Indians did 
"^^' ''' v,^.,.,, ... ^^^ ^^ .^^ Unfor- 

tunately for the Indian agents, if they do not wish to be con- 
sidered irreclaimable liars, the guilt of the Indians has been so 
positively demonstrated that there is no way of wrigghng out 
of it The fact that the Indians have been raidmg m lexas, 
and have, during their absence, been drawing full rations at 
the reservation, is a revelation that should be entirely satisfac- 
tory to those who have been perplexed to know how an Indian 
agent is able to save thirty thousand dollars a year out of less 
than a three-thousand-dollars salary. 






520 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Gen. Ord has, however, settled the question as to the guilt 
of the Fort-Stanton reservation Indians, as far as raids into 
Texas are concerned, as will be seen by the following particu- 
lars of Lieut. Bullis's celebrated scout, during which he pur- 
sued the Indians to within three miles of the agent's house, 
making, in all, twelve hundred miles travelled. 

A band of Indians had been stealing stock in Kerr County, 
and the object of the scout was to follow them to their homes. 
The pursuing party was composed of thirty-nine Seminole and 
three Lipan Indian scouts ; one Mexican packer, Jose Tafoya ; 
Lieut.' F. D. Sharpe, 20th infantry ; and P. C. Gilbert, U.S.A. : 
total, forty-five persons, under command of Lieut. Bullis. 

They started from Las Moras Creek on Jan. 31, 1879. 
Owing to the season, and the rough nature of the ground, 
they suffered terribly. On Feb. 28, the twenty-ninth day of 
the scout, having been without water for several days, their 
animals were scarcely able to move. Bullis and his men fully 
expected to perish. When their distress was at its highest 
point, David Bowlegs, first sergeant of the Seminole scouts, 
reported a small spring. It was a sleeping spring. After work- 
ing for an hour, the water boiled up to such an extent that three 
animals, drinking, could not lower it. Very many of the large 
mules and horses drank ten bucketsful each. Bullis named the 
spring "■ Salvation Spring." Near this place they found eleven 
horses in the mountains. They had been abandoned by the 
Indians, who had gone on to the Fort-Stanton reservation with 
the rest of the stock. On the thirty-fourth day of the scout, 
Bullis reports, " Camped on Pinaco Creek, about sixty miles 
from Fort Stanton, and thirty miles from the Mescalero Indian 
agency. There were several ranchos at this post ; and citizens 
reported that the Indians had passed five days before, and had 
killed one of their work-oxen as they passed ; that five citizens 
had followed them into the agency ; and that the agent had 
compelled the Indians to give the owner of the ox two of the 
horses brought in by them, in payment ; and when questioned 
by the agent, Mr. Godfrey, why they killed the ox, the Indians 
said they had been on a long journey, — of which we were well 
aware, — and were hungry." 



GUILT OF RESERVATION INDIANS. 521 

Bullis and his scouts continued following the trail, which 
passed within three miles of the agent's house. Bullis reported 
the fact to him, and requested him to turn the Indians over to 
him (Bullis), as he wanted to take them back to Texas for the 
purpose of trying them. The agent promised to try and get 
the Indians, and turn them over to Bullis. He also said he 
would come to Stanton during the week, and see about it. 

After the usual dilatory proceedings, lasting several days, a 
new Indian agent addressed the following communication to 
Lieut. Bullis : — 

Mescalero Agency, March 16, 1879. 

Major Godfrey assures me that there is no probability of the Indians 
you mentioned to me, coming in ; or, to use his own language, you might 
as well look for a needle in a haystack as to try and get them. 

S. A. Russell, Agent. 

Although the Indians, with the unrecovered remnant of the 
stock stolen from Kerr County, were on the reservation, and 
could easily have been captured had the agent been disposed 
to assist Lieut. Bullis in doing so, yet the latter was compelled 
to retrace his steps without either the thieves or the rest of 
the stock. On the eightieth day of the scout, Bullis and his 
foot-sore, broken-down animals rode into Fort Clark, having 
marched twelve hundred and sixty-six and a half miles. 

The foregoing establishes a few facts that should occupy the 
attention of the war-department. It settles, beyond the possi- 
bility of contradiction, that the Indians who raid in Western 
Texas are from the Fort-Stanton reservation, although the 
only persons who have ever been sceptical are such fellows as 
Godfrey and Russell. The probabilities are, that three-fourths 
of the robberies and murders committed in Texas during the 
last few years have been committed by this class of Indians. 
It also appears that it is useless to attempt to obtain satisfac- 
tion from the authorities at the reservation, who are indiffer- 
ent about the depredations committed in Texas and Mexico. 
As long as the Indians are kept on this reservation we may 
expect to have trouble. The authorities at Washington should 
move these Indians to some secluded spot, where they would 



52 2 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

be prevented by geographical difficulties from making Western 
Texas their raiding-ground, to the detriment of the welfare of 
the whole State. 

Some people may think I exaggerate : I will not blame them 
if they do. The Indian outrages are committed in a country 
that is farther removed, by time in travelling, from the seat of 
government and from the Eastern States, than New York is 
from the coast of Africa. The news of a revolt and massacre 
in Liberia does not excite a man in Massachusetts as much as 
a dog-fight on the next block would. On the same principle, 
the meagre announcement in the daily papers, that " the Indians 
raided on Donohue's ranch, killed the inhabitants, and drove off 
the stock," excites no sympathy. 

But let a man go out among the frontier ranches that are 
liable to Indian incursions ; let him talk with the wives whose 
husbands have been murdered and scalped, with the husbands 
whose wives and children have been butchered, and with men 
and women who have had brothers and sisters tortured as only 
the Devil and the Indians know how to torture, — and he will 
agree with me, that no pen could describe the crimes perpe- 
trated by the red fiends, and that only by a personal visit to 
the scenes of their savage atrocities can one realize the dread- 
ful effect of the absurd and iniquitous Indian policy of the 
Government of the United States. 

There are a number of unreasonable beings in several parts 
of the world who require proof or corroborative evidence before 
they will believe any thing. I call their attention to the follow- 
ing official document : — 



LIST OF KILLED, WOUNDED, ETC, 



523 



ABSTRACT "G." 

List of Persons killed, wounded, and captured by Indians, in the 
Department of Texas, for the Year ending Oct. i, 1878, officially 
reported by Post-Commanders. 



u 



Fort Clark. 
Unknown (Mexican herders), near Sanze Ranch, Tex., Nov. 18, 

1877, Indians. 
R. W. Barry and Juan Diaz, about twenty-three miles below Fort 

Duncan, Tex., on Laredo road, Feb. 23, 1878, by Mexicans. 
Unknown (Mexican), near Indian Creek, about ten miles from 

Uvalde, Tex., Nov. 16, 1877, by Indians. 
George Taylor and Dick Taylor, at Mr. Steel's ranch (" Palo 
Alto"), Nueces River, Tex., April 17, 1878, by Lipan and 
Kickapoo Indians from Mexico. 
Two herders, at Mr. Nicholas Colson's sheep-ranch, twelve miles 
west of Camp Wood, June i, 1878. 
Fort Davis. 
Henry Dill (stage-driver), at El Muerto, Tex., Aug. i, 1877, 

supposed by Indians. 
Sandy Ball, four miles west of El Muerto, Tex., Aug. i, 1877, 

supposed by Indians. 
Gabriel Valdez and Horan Parsons, in Bass Canyon, near Van 

Horn's Wells, Tex., by Apache Indians, Dec. 23, 1877. 
Victorius Rios and Sevoriano Elivario, at Point of Rocks, in 
Limpia Canyon, Tex., fifteen miles from Fort Davis, Tex., 
Feb. 16, 1878, by Mescalero-A'pache Indians from Fort- 
Stanton Indian Reservation. 
Librado Galindo, Petro Rentirio, Julian Molino, Martin Lara, 
Remulo Montoga, and Madaleno Villalobas, about sixty-three 
miles north-west of Presidio del Norte, Tex., Jan. 5, 1878, by 
Mescalero-Apache Indians from Fort-Stanton Indian Reser- 
vation. 
W. McCall, in Nine-Mile Canyon, nine miles from Fort Quitman, 
Tex., April 17, 1878, by Mescalero-Apache Indians from Fort- 
Stanton Indian Reservation. 
Lonjino Gonzales (Mexican mail-rider), near Point of Rocks, 
eighteen miles north-east of Fort Davis, Tex., April 20, 1878, 
by Mescalero-Apache Indians from Fort-Stanton Indian Res- 
ervation. 

Florentino and one unknown, at Point of Rocks, about 

eighteen miles north-east of Fort Davis, Tex., April 20, 1878, 
supposed by Mescalero-Apache Indians from Fort-Stanton 
Indian Reservation. 



524 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



ABSTRACT " G," — Continued. 



T3 


-a 

c 
3 

1 


Ji 

3 

1 


\ 








Fort M'Kavett. 


I 


- 
















16, 1878, by Indians. 


2 






Unknown, in Mason County, Tex., Jan. 16, 1878, by Indians. 
Fort Stockton. 


I 






John Sanders (stage-driver), near Flat Rocks, Tex., Oct. 22, 1877, 
by unknown parties. 

San Diego. 


I 






Frederick B. Moore, at San Ygnacio, McMullen County, near 
the line of Duval County, Tex., 3 p.m., April 17, 187S, by 
Indians. 


I 


— 


— 


Vicenti Robeldo (Gillet's head shepherd), near Brown's ranch, 
Duval County, Tex., 4 p.m., April 17, 1S78, by Indians. 


I 


~ 


— 


Guadaloupe Basan, at Rancho Solidad, Duval County, 12 M., 
April 18, 1878, by Indians. 


2 






Mexican shepherd and wife, shot, tied together, and thrown 
across a horse, near the Solidad ranch, Duval County, Tex., 
April 18, 1878. 


I 


— 


~ 


John Jordan, at Charco Escondido, Duval County, Tex., 5 p.m., 
April 18, 1878, by Indians. 


I 


— 


— 


Antonio Valdez, at Charco Escondido, Duval County, Tex., 5 
P.M., April 18, 1878, by Indians. 


I 


■" 


~ 


Margarito Rodriguez, ten miles west of Charco Escondido, Enci- 
nal County, Tex., at 6 a.m., April 19, 1878, by Indians. 


I 






Jose Ma. Canales, at Quijotes Gordes, Tex., 12 m., April 19, 
1878, by Indians, his body being thrown on his camp-fire, and 
his lower extremities consumed. 


37 


I 




The foregoing statement includes only those officially reported 
by post-commanders. 

Headquarters, Department of Texas, 
San Antonio, Sept. 30, 1878. 
(Signed) THOS. M. VINCENT, 

Assistant Adjutant-Genei'al. 


9 


5 


- 


Note. -^ See Address of the Committee of the People to the 
Honorable Secretary of State as to others killed, etc. 


46 


6 


- 


Forty-six killed and six wounded would thus be the total ; nine 
killed and five wounded not being embraced in reports from 








post-commanders. 



A CRY FOR HELP, 525 

Gen. J. J. Byrne, on the 6th of August, 1880, wrote the fol- 
lowing letter to Congressman Throckmorton, appealing to him 
to use his influence at Washington to have the people of the 
frontier of Texas protected from the Indians. Gen. Byrne was 
a brigadier-general in the Federal army when only twenty-five 
years of age. He was killed by the Indians inside of ten days 
after he wrote the letter given below. 

YsLiTA, El Paso County, Tex., Aug. 6, 1880. 

De^r Governor, — Knowing no man within the limits of this State 
who takes a greater interest in its welfare and prosperity, I write you in 
the interest of these people, and of this sorely distressed section, not to 
enlist your sympathy (they have that), but to have you exert your in- 
fluence in official quarters for their relief. There is scarcely a day 
passes without witnessing a massacre, perpetrated with all the fiendish 
atrocity of which the Indian is capable. Interruption of the mails is of 
daily occurrence, and the drivers and passengers massacred ; emigrant- 
trains attacked in broad daylight, and the emigrants killed, and their 
bodies mutilated in the most horrible manner. The greatest insecurity 
for life and property prevails, not only on the road, but extends even to 
the populous towns along the river. Victorio and his band of three 
hundred or four hundred Indians are sufficient, not only to escape the 
vigilance of the Mexican troops, but to cross over the river at pleasure, 
openly taunt and challenge the United-States forces to battle, and defy 
their gallant (?) commander (Grierson), who, on their appearance in 
the country, retreats to an almost impregnable mountain fortress, and 
commences fortifying. That is the protection the United-States Govern- 
ment is extending to its citizens on the exposed frontier. The result 
is, that travel of all kinds is suspended, and the people of the district 
included between Franklin (El Paso) and Presidio del Norte are filled 
with dread and terror. There is not a town on the river that is not at 
Victorio's mercy if he chose to attack it. The rangers are powerless 
for good, because insufficient in numbers. 

The people of this section ask you, for God's sake, to exert your in- 
fluence to have some other soldiers sent them besides negroes, and 
another commander, — Mackenzie, Merritt, Davidson, Bust, — any one 
but Grierson or Hatch. They want a soldier who will protect the citi- 
zens of his government by giving a common enemy battle whenever and 
wherever he shows himself. The present policy, if pursued much longer, 
will result in hermetrically sealing up this section of the State. Its set- 



526 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



tlement and development, which was rapidly taking place, has been 
postponed indefinitely. Immigration has ceased to come in this direc- 
tion and local travel between settlements, even by another mode than 
by horseback, discontinued. 

I think you will agree with me, that this deplorable condition of affairs 
should be alleviated at once, and the prayers and gratitude of your dis- 
tressed fellow-citizens in this section of the State will forever attend you 
for any efforts you make in their behalf. 

Yours respectfully, 

J. J. Byrne. 
Hon, J. W. Throckmorton, McKinney, Tex. 



Will it be believed that bands of Indians from the Fort-Sill 
reservation, in charge of a few soldiers, penetrate hundreds of 
miles into Texas on hunting-excursions } And yet such is the 
fact. Only a short time ago a soldier put in an appearance at 
Fort Concho, inquiring for stray Indians from Fort Sill, over 

two hundred and fifty miles 
distant. He was one of the 
guard of a party of Indians 
from Fort Sill that had come 
into Texas to hunt, and he 
had lost his Indians. He 
asked if any loose Indians 
had come to the post. Usual- 
ly Indians come to a post 
to get tight, instead of get- 
ting loose. Nobody had 
seen the soldier's Indians ; 
and, after he had got some 
supplies, he went off again. 
It would be interesting to 
the people of Texas to know 
what those missing Indians 
were doing, how many Texas 
horses they drove back to the reservation, and who drew their 
rations while they were absent in Texas, getting lost, and 
having a good time generally. The proper way would be to 




THE SOLDIER WHO LOST 
HIS INDIANS. 



APACHE JOHN. 



527 



put those Indians in some place where there was nothing to 
eat and no way to get out. 

There are about one hundred and twenty-five Indians at 
Griffin, but there is no Indian agent there. These Indians 
have been friendly 

to the whites, and r ' """^ ^ 

r e n d*e r e d them 
much useful service 
in the troubles with 
wild tribes. The 
government allows 
the commander of 
the post a few hun- 
dred dollars annu- 
ally for the support 
of these Indians ; 
but the sum is so 
small that it does 
not keep them from 
actual starvation. 
The consequence 
is, they are dying 
off rapidly, from 
lack of food and 
clothing. One of 
the Indians, called 
" Apache John, " 
has written, or rath- 
er got somebody to 
write at his dicta- 
tion, a letter to a gentleman in San Antonio, who was once 
at Fort Griffin, and with whom *' Apache John " is well 
acquainted. There is real pathos in the letter, a portion of 
which I give : — 

. . . "We have been much sick. Tonkawa Compania died sixteen days 
ago; Smith (another Indian) died nine days before Compania; Stephen died 
two months ago and a half ; Comas died two months ago; Alex, died one 
month and a day ago. The Tonkawas and Lipans are very poor. We get a 




HEAP MELONS.' 



528 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

little flour and a little beef, some sugar and coffee, but no blankets or 

calico. We are very poor, and a heap hungry many times. The sun is hot 

for two weeks. Heap melons, heap die. 

His 
"Apache X John." 

Mark. 

In Gen. Sheridan's report, he refers to the causes that have 
led to complications with the Indians. He says, among other 
things, — 

" Many complaints have been forwarded to the war department through 
these headquarters since my last report, showing that there has been an 
insufficiency of food at some of the Indian agencies within this military 
division ; and hunger will always produce trouble. I have heretofore 
reported, and desire to reiterate my former statements, that at least the beef 
ration now allowed the Indians is insufficient, and I believe this may arise 
from inadequate appropriations made by Congress for this purpose. It 
should be borne in mind that the vast country lying between the Missouri 
River and the Rocky Mountains, including Colorado and a portion of New 
Mexico, has been wrested from the Indians; and the immense herds of 
game, upon which these Indians formerly subsisted, have, to a great extent, 
disappeared ; and that all the country mentioned is now given up to mining 
interests, cattle-ranches, and general agriculture ; and that the annual market- 
value of the mineral and food supplies of this region aggregates hundreds 
of millions of dollars. It would seem to me that such beneficial results as 
those should induce Congress to furnish the poor people, from whom this 
country has been taken, with sufficient food to enable them to live without 
suffering the pangs of hunger." 

Gen. Sheridan goes on to show that the Indian is not fairly 
treated. In a conversation that I had with Gen. Ord on this 
subject, I obtained a great deal of interesting information in 
reference to the treatment of Indians when he was stationed 
at Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico, California, and other States 
and Territories, and where he had ample opportunities of 
observing the practical workings of the Indian bureau. Gen. 
Ord was emphatic in the declaration that the outrages and 
sufferings the Indians have to endure from ignorant, or worse 
than ignorant, agents, and the action of government, have 
never been properly described. For instance : there are In- 
dians on the Pacific coast who subsist entirely on fish and 
whale's blubber ; the only vegetable matter they consume being 
a kind of seaweed that they eat raw, and also prepare, by a 



GEN. ORB'S OBSERVATIONS, 529 

peculiar process, for winter use. They are accustomed to the 
salt water, and do not mind the cold. It would not be long 
before these Indians would be moved to a reservation if the 
squatter wanted the land for mining or agricultural purposes ; 
and then these fish-eating Indians would be removed to some 
inland reservation, and starved to death on short rations, sour 
flour, and other diet that they were not accustomed to. On the 
other hand, Indians from the mountains, who subsisted by the 
chase, and were unaccustomed to fish diet, would be moved to 
some bleak place on the coast, where they would perish from 
cold and unaccustomed food. Another species of outrage very 
common was to place, nolens volens, a weak tribe on the reser- 
vation with a strong tribe, well knowing that there was a feud 
between them, and that the stronger would oppress the weaker 
tribe until endurance ceased to be a virtue. Again, an Indian 
tribe would be removed from their home, and placed in some 
reservation where they were certain to be decimated by fever. 
Gen. Ord mentioned an instance in California where the In- 
dians were expected to live by fishing, but not a single fish-hook 
did they receive. But, to make up for the loss, a fifteen-thou- 
sand-dollar church was built for them, when they were in a 
starving condition. The church was intended to be a perma- 
nent monument of the kind-heartedness of the Indian depart- 
ment. Men were sent out as agents who knew absolutely 
nothing about the Indians and their wants. There were only 
two reasons why the Indian bureau had been a failure ; namely, 
lack of honesty, and lack of brains. For year after year the 
army officers at the posts had reported that the Indians were 
starved ; and no doubt it was the cause of all, or nearly all, the 
trouble. Such was the result of Gen. Ord's personal observa- 
tion when he was with those Indians. 

Owing to the way the government treats the Indians, it is 
no wonder that every moon we read such telegrams as the 
following, which I copy from the Galveston ** News " of a few 
months ago. 

[Special telegram to the " News."] 

El Paso, Oct. 14. 

A fight occurred to-day near Mason's ranch, about fifty miles north- 
west of this place, between a party of thirty citizens from Los Cruces 

34 



530 . ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

and Mesilla, and a band of Apaches from Mescalero and the Warm 
Springs reservations. Six volunteers were killed. 

VOLUNTEERS COLLECTING. — REGULARS ENGAGED. 

[Special telegram to the " News,"] 

El Paso, Oct. i6. 

The volunteers, now numbering eighty, are on the trail of the Indians, 
and another engagement is looked for to-morrow. 

The Indians attacked a train eight miles west of Mason's last night, 
and killed thirteen men and one woman. Their bodies were found 
to-day, and buried by the volunteers. The United-States troops, com- 
manded by Major Morrow, are actively engaged ; but nothing definite is 
known of his movements at present. 

These scant telegrams contain all the news that the world 
gets of murdered men, outraged women, and children butchered 
on their mothers' breasts, all that we ever hear of the heroic 
but hopeless defence of the white man, the cowardly ambush 
of the savages, the dreadful feast of the coyote, and the bones 
of the pioneers bleaching on the prairies. 

The following is copied from the Congressional records. It 
has the sound of a despairing cry for help, — a cry, that, it is to 
be hoped, will move those in authority who are responsible for 
the condition of things on the frontier. 

DOCUMENT «E." 

address of the committee of the people to the honorable 

secretary of state. 

Secretary of State of the United States, Washington, D.C. 

Sir, — We, the citizens of a district of country between the Nueces 
River and the Rio Grande, in the State of Texas, one of the United 
States of America, through a committee duly selected and appointed by 
us, as hereinafter set forth by the proceedings of our meetings, — consist- 
ing of the Hon. Joseph Fitzsimmons, county judge of Nueces County, 
chairman ; Hon. John C. Russell, judge of the district court of the 
Twenty-fifth Judicial District of the State of Texas ; Hon. John M. Moore, 
mayor of the city of Corpus Christi ; Capt. John J. Dix and Capt. H. W. 
Berry, members ; together with William H. Maltby, secretary, and Ed- 
ward Buckley, Esq., Col. Nelson Plato, and William Headen as corre- 
sponding secretaries, selected with a view to the commendatory charac- 



DOCUMENT ''Er 



531 



ter of their official stations, — beg to address you as the chief of state of 
this great nation, a statesman in whom we have confidence, and through 
you to speak to his Excellency the President, to Congress, and through 
all to appeal to the warm and sympathetic hearts of our countrymen. 




We are peaceful, 
- law-abidmg, and in- 
dustrious people. We have 
come hither from the west, 
east, north, and south to oc- 
cupy this wilderness of verdure. 
We peacefully follow our flocks 
and herds, which roam over the 
wide-spreading savannas, through the lovely valleys, 
across the hills, or scatter far over the great ex- 
panses of our grander prairies. 

Our homes are far apart. Ten and twenty and fifty miles often inter- 
vene between our houses. Again : where streams flow, or permanent 
water is abundant, the ranches or dwellings are nearer, but seldom, in- 
deed, in sight. 



532 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

We have been greatly exposed. We have overcome many difficulties. 
We have prospered. We hoped to give advantages to our children 
that have been denied to ourselves. We had in view that they should 
become more useful in society, more honorable and distinguished in our 
country, and prove our support and crown of rejoicing in our old age. 

The acme of our expectations often has almost been reached ; and 
then the labors of years have been swept from us as with the fury of a 
hurricane, and many precious lives ruthlessly sacrificed to sate the hate 
of the remorseless Mexican bandit, as well as to gratify his hellish greed 
and that of his allies, the Indian brutes, whom he gives a shelter and a 
home in the mountain fastnesses near Santa Rosa, in the State of Coa- 
huila. Republic of Mexico, from whence, jointly, the Indian and Mexican 
murderers make rapid, and, owing to intervals determined by malicious 
and malignant judiciousness, often unexpected, raids upon our widely 
separated homes. They scatter our sheep far and wide, leaving them 
for weeks a prey to wild beasts, because their shepherds have been 
driven off or killed. They destroy our sheep-camps. They plunder 
our houses. They drive off our horses. Yet these all might be endured 
until eventually overcome, were it not for the more fearful horrors which 
attend them. They kill, and then horribly mutilate, all whom they en- 
counter, — old and young, men and women, and prattling children, and 
smiling babes. Our houses are filled with sorrow, and our hearts with 
gloom ; our hopes, so fondly cherished, are blasted forever ; and life's 
anticipations are shrouded in the darkest night. 

Without adequate proof it would be deemed incredible that such 
incursions, without provocation, could occur ; that such incarnate fiends 
could be nursed and fondled and protected by a neighboring republic at 
peace with us ; that such raids have been made, and none of the human 
bloodhounds brought to justice, nor the country to which they fled for 
shelter made to give them up. 

Yet, sir, these are facts. Such incursions have and do occur, and 
without provocation. These fiends, — to say, Kickapoo, Lipan, and 
Seminole Indians, joined with Mexican thieves and cut-throats, — doubt- 
less at times instigated by the prospective petty chiefs, who require horses 
for another revolution that it is expected will elevate them to authority, 
aided, too, by some white outlaws, are to-day to be found in the 
vicinity of Santa Rosa, Republic of Mexico, protected, fondled, and 
nursed by the Mexican Government. The lower strata of the Mexican 
commonalty, who never have been satisfied since the revolt of Texas, 
and its annexation to the United States, gloat over the fact, and roll it 



DOCUMENT ''Er 



533 



with satisfaction as a sweet morsel under their tongues, that these van- 
dals compose the besom of destruction which sweeps ever and anon 
the Texas frontier, and desolates the homes of the hated " Americanos." 
It has never occurred, that, by due process of law, any of these maraud- 
ing villains have been brought to justice. Mexico has never had any 
of them arrested ; has never taken steps to give them up. 



<i 









'/ /' ■/. 







i«:.::'.u. jj>;#^ ,v.,^,v,; w5;^(i ■ ''AsJ/J\^^^ 







f-'^l Vv^V.?n 



•ah' 



nil, 



k- 







INDIANS ATTACKING A TRAIN. 



We make these statements, sir, of facts to 
you, to the President, to Congress, and to the 
country. We ask, " Shall such fearful out- 
rages be tolerated? " Nay, more, we herewith present to you the history 
of a recent raid made during the full moon of April last. It is suc- 
cinctly compiled from affidavits of eye-witnesses ; and the raid, from 
the beginning to the ending, is portrayed se7'iatim by these sworn state- 
ments, duly authenticated before lawful officers of the government, under 
their seals. Of necessity the testimony is ex parte ; yet we feel, under 
the circumstances, on this account it will lose none of its weight with 
you, with the President, with Congress, or with the country. 

We call upon you, therefore, as a statesman of a great and just nation, 



534 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

to avenge our dead, to punish the criminals, and insure our protection 
in the future. We know there are malecontents who seek to stir up strife. 
We are not of these. Were we such, our bitter, burning wrongs are suf- 
ficient to drive us to desperation now. We know, too, that florid lan- 
guage and intense expression are used for political purposes and partisan 
ends ; but we cannot emphasize our language, or intensify our expressions, 
with the force they require. Horresco referens may be joined to every 
sentence, and spread as a pall upon the whole. Our cry is for justice. 
Mexico should make atonement, and her savages should be expelled. 

Actuated, sir, by the grievousness of our sufferings, we have gone 
deliberately to work at this matter. We have gathered sufficient evi- 
dence to establish our statements, and to support and commend our 
appeal. We submit all herewith, inclusive of the original documents, 
which we deem best to lodge with the department of state for use and 
reference. The simple tale of each affidavit rivets the truth of the fear- 
ful narrative, and forces a just conviction. These are furthermore cor- 
roborated and confirmed by the official reports of the commanders of 
military posts, doubtless, of this district of country. These, we know, are 
at your command, through the proper channel of the war department, 
or through the esteemed military chief commander of Texas, Gen. Ord. 

To the history of the raid we have deemed it advisable to add a list 
of the killed and wounded, and a map of the country traversed. The 
whole is anxiously, and with great confidence, intrusted to your care. 
We rely upon your integrity, position, and ability. We have faith that 
our appeal to the President and to Congress will be heard. We confide 
in the warm hearts of our countrymen, believing that our cry shall not 
come before them in vain, and that you, as their honored Chief of State, 
will redress our grievous wrongs. 

We are, sir, with expressions of feelings of high esteem and regard, 
most respectfully your obedient servants. 

(Signed) 

Joseph Fitzsimmons, County Judge Nueces Co., Tex., Chairman, 
John C. Russell, Judge Twenty-jifth Judicial District. 
John M. Moore, Mayor City of Corpus Christi, Tex. 
H. W. Berry, Ex- Sheriff Nueces Co., Tex. 
John J. Dix, County Surveyor Duval Co., Tex, 

Wm. H. Maltby, Secretary. 

Edward Buckley, ^ 

Nelson Plato, > Corresponding Secretaries. 

William Headen, ) 



MEXICAN DEMONSTRATIONS. 



535 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 




IN a while the Mexican author- 
ities make violent demonstra- 
tions against the Indians and 
Mexican marauders, with a 
view to cause the people of 
the United States to believe 
that they are opposed to their 
thieves crossing into Texas. 
The Mexicans have been 
requested to keep their Indi- 
ans at home, and our govern- 
ment has insisted that the 
Mexicans should punish their 
Indians for raiding into Tex- 
as. The Mexicans did, on one 
occasion, punish some of the 
Indians, and made quite a 
noise over it, to show that 
they did not countenance 
such citizens. 

We have all read that old 
story about the way the commander of a fort with a small gar- 
rison, besieged by a much superior force, deceived the officer 
who was sent in, under a flag of truce, to demand a surrender. 
The commander of the besieged fort marched his little garrison 
in review before the officer. After they had passed in review, 
they marched behind him, and again marched past in review, 



536 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

creating the impression that they were another body of soldiers. 
And that Httle garrison kept on marching past, until the officer 
with the flag of truce was petrified with astonishment at the 
immense strength of the besieged garrison, little suspecting 
that he had been looking at the same crowd five or six times 
over. The officer returned to headquarters, and advised the 
besiegers to get away as soon as possible. 

Now, that is very much the kind of pastime the Mexicans 
played on the Texans. They captured the same band of 
Indians four different times, and each time they made out of it 
a fresh crowd. There were eighty-five Indians in the original 
band captured by Col. Ortiz, and five were killed in attempting 
to escape. This happened for the first time when Gen. Tre- 
vino of the Mexican army was visiting Gen. Ord in San Antonio. 

The glad tidings of the capture of the Indians assisted the 
people of Texas very much in making up their minds that 
the Mexicans were not joking about frontier protection. It also 
removed any doubts that the Indians, particularly those who 
were killed, had on the subject. It was especially gratifying 
to know that the wily old chief Colorado was among those 
captured. The prisoners were all to be removed to the city of 
Mexico. About a week afterwards, some new officer captured 
eighty-one Indians. They were Mescaleros. The prominent 
chief, Colorado, had also been captured. Five of them were 
killed dead, positively beyond recovery, in resisting arrest. 
The captured savages were to be sent to the city of Mexico. 
This was good news. The Texans yearned for more of it, and 
they got it. Not long afterwards, a despatch was received by 
a frontier paper, stating that the Mexican Government was 
thoroughly in earnest, and wished to promote friendly relations 
with the United States, and, in proof of its earnestness, reported 
that Col. Jose Maria Cosmosellama had just succeeded in cap- 
turing eighty-two Indians of the Mescalero tribe. Five resisted 
arrest, and were shot. Among those captured was old Colo- 
rado, an influential chief. The prisoners were to be sent to 
the interior, — to the city of Mexico. 

Public indignation in Western Texas, which had been very 
strong against the Indians, began to moderate. The massacre 



OVERWORKED MEXICAN SOLDIERS. 537 

of five Indian corpses three or four times awakened a feeling al- 
most akin to sympathy for the remains. There was also some sym- 
pathy for the Mexican officers, who were evidently overworked. 
The following recent despatch shows how the good work 
was still going on. 

CAPTURE OF INDIANS EY MEXICAN AUTHORITIES. 
[Special despatch to the "Daily Express."] 

Eagle Pass, Jan. 27. 

I received advices to-day from a reliable party of Santa Rosa, Mex., 
that troops sent out by Gen. Trevino had returned with eighty-one 
Indian prisoners. They were captured by the authorities of the town of 
San Carlos, Chihuahua, and delivered to the troops. Among the pris- 
oners was the noted chief, old Colorado. The Indians are Mescaleros. 

The Indians, consisting of about eighty-five persons, in mak- 
ing fifty miles from the place where they were first captured, 
lost four times eighty Indians, or three hundred and twenty 
Indians, by capture ; and four times five Indians, who were 
killed four times, make twenty more Indians. Falstaff's 
" men in buckram " were nothing to this. By the time the 
Indians reach the city of Mexico, there will have been taken 
prisoners, if this bad luck is kept up, sixty thousand Mescaleros 
out of the eighty that started out. If the five Indians who 
have been killed four times in travelling sixty miles continue 
to resist arrest, there will have fallen in the conflict three thou- 
sand seven hundred and fifty Indians out of the original five 
who were shot by Col. Ortiz only a few months before. This 
is a dreadful mortality. After the Mexicans have got through 
with those Indians, we hope the latter will be sent to the United 
States, that Gen. Howard may have a whack at them — that is, 
if there are any of the eighty left, after three thousand seven 
hundred and fifty have been killed. 

This reminds one of the Son of Temperance who managed 
to keep tight all the time without violating his pledge. He 
registered a solemn vow never to drink any thing except when 
he went out duck-hunting. So he tied an old drake up in a tree 
in his yard ; and, whenever he felt one of those spells coming 
on hirn, he would go out into the yard, and blaze away at the 



538 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



drake. Then he would come back to the house, and drive away 
the sense of discouragement under which he was laboring by 
three fingers, lengthwise, of Old Bourbon. 

Whenever Gen. Trevino wants to intoxicate himself with 
flattery from the American press, he goes out and captures the 
Mescaleros, and then he feels better at once. But it is rou^h 
on the old drake Colorado, and those five Mescalero corpses, 

to have to be shot over 
again for resisting arrest. 
To a mathematical mind 
this subject is very em- 
barrassing. 

The commissioners ap- 
pointed by Congress, who 
visited the Rio Grande, 
and made thorough in- 
vestigation, reported that 
the assessment -roll 
showed an ownership, in 
the counties where the 
Mexican and Indian 
thieves operated, of 290,- 
193 cattle and 73,593 
horses in 1880. They 
further report, that ''the 
evidence of all the ex- 
perts examined before 
the commission estab- 
lishes the alarming fact, 
that in this region the number of cattle to-day is between one- 
third and one-fourth of the number in 1866." 

The following is an extract from the report made by the 
commissioners: — 




DUCK-HUNTING. 



" The tract of land lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande Rivers 
comprises, on the Lower Rio Grande, the counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, 
Starr, Webb, La Salle, Encinal, Duval, Zapata, Live Oak, McMullen, and 
Nueces, — a tract of land three hundred miles long, and from one to two 
hundred miles in width. 



CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS. 539 

"The assessment-roll of 1870 showed in these counties an ownership 
of nearly five million acres of land. The region is one vast prairie, and is 
given up to the raising of beef-cattle for the general markets of the country, 
and to the breeding of horses. 

" Between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers, the Arroyo Colorado, a 
salt-water inlet, divides the grassy prairie between it and the Nueces, from 
the sandy desert stretching on its other side along the Rio Grande. This 
sandy tract bears only the mesquite-shrub and a thin fringe of vegetation 
along the banks of the Rio Grande. This dry waste was formerly consid- 
ered to be an effectual safeguard to the interior of Texas. 

" In the tract thus described, although thinly settled (large ranches 
many miles apart dotting it here and there only), the assessment-roll of 
1870 showed an ownership, in the counties named, of 299,193 cattle and 
73,593 horses, although there was no return made of the stock in Live Oak 
and McMullen Counties. The very pecuhar custom of the owners as to the 
herding of their stock (which roams on the unfenced ranges), as well as their 
interest in returning a low value on their property for assessment, forbids 
them making an overstatement of their cattle ; while horses, more carefully 
guarded, are given in at a fairer enumeration. 

" Unfenced, save in a few isolated instances, the stock-ranges of this 
region gave subsistence to hundreds of thousands of cattle in excess of 
the assessed number ; and under the influence of the northers these cattle, 
in grazing, move towards the south and west. Large numbers thus move 
down into this region from the valley of the Lower Rio Grande, and from 
ranches beyond the Nueces. When they cross the Nueces River, they 
mingle with the local herds, largely increasing their numbers, remaining thus 
strayed until the agent of the owner enters them in his annual report, and, 
according to instructions, sells them, or returns them to their distant owners. 
The neighboring counties of Goliad, Refugio, San Patricio, Karnes, Atas- 
cosa, and Uvalde, contribute thousands to the once countless herds that 
occupy this region. The Texas cattle range over great stretches of prairie ; 
often, in dry seasons, going a day's march for water, and then returning to 
their accustomed pastures. 

" Once yearly they are driven up by the rancheros, examined, branded, 
separated, the strayed stock moved on towards their owners' ranches, or 
disposed of, and an account of their number taken. The distance traversed 
in search of the cattle of one herd is surprising ; from fifty to one hundred 
and fifty miles not being unusual. Ownership is determined by the brands 
applied and the peculiar ear-mark, a record of which is required by law to 
be kept in the county-clerk's office. These brands are also published in 
the various newspapers in the region as standing advertisements. When a 
herd is sold, the sale of the brand is recorded. The custom is to separate 
for sale the four-year-old steers, the females being retained in the herd for 
breeding. The stock-raisers' associations regulate the method of handling 
the herds, decide on rules for common protection, and, in attempting to 



540 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

maintain an efficient private police, have shown a commendable zeal in pro- 
tecting the interests represented by their members. In giving personal and 
official notice to the various State and Mexican authorities, in suggesting 
and attempting to make effective a fair system of hide-inspection, and in 
other respects, the associated stock-raisers of Western Texas have exhausted 
every means at their disposal, with a view to protect their interests. 

" The character of the occupation in which they are engaged, the present 
value of cattle in Texas, the scarcity of lumber, together with the peculiar 
features of land-tenure, prevent, as a rule, the fencing of their ranges, many 
of them being owned in common by various rancheros holding complicated 
titles. Ranches of from ten thousand to two hundred thousand acres are 
here employed solely for stock-raising. This region, by reason of the irregu- 
larity of the season, is ill adapted to agricultural pursuits, and is devoted 
entirely to grazing. Freights are high, the country has no railroad commu- 
nication, and the Texan ox, a source of moderate profit to the breeder, 
passes through many hands, and pays toll to different local companies before 
reaching the Northern consumer. 

" The stock-raisers in the region referred to are a liberal and industrious* 
class of citizens, placed in a trying position ; and the hard labor of years is 
represented in their flocks and herds. The land they own has no value, 
unless peaceable possession is assured them. The good feeling existing 
among them as a class is evidenced by their general wilHngness to ex- 
change powers-of-attorney to protect, as far as possible, their mutual 
interests in the recovery of strayed or stolen stock. The advantage to be 
derived from co-operation on the part of owners will be seen in the fact 
that cattle bearing the brands of King & Kenedy, Hale & Parker, T. Hines 
Clark, and other owners of large herds, have been traced for hundreds of 
miles along the Rio Grande, and on the Mexican side from Monterey to 
Bagdad, either by the movements of the strayed or stolen cattle, or handling 
of hides stripped from them. 

" Reference to the Report of the Third Annual Fair of Texas, held at San 
Antonio, shows that a herd of seventy-five thousand cattle will ordinarily 
range over an area of country one hundred miles long and fifty miles wide. 
With expert thieves depredating on this property, it is easy to see that the 
damage must amount to millions of dollars. Herds numbering fifty thou- 
sand to seventy-five thousand are not unusual in Western Texas. The 
stock-raiser, living on his isolated ranch, shows his prosperity in continually 
augmenting his herds of breeding-cattle by purchase, and acquiring lands 
for their subsistence. The yearly income is derived from the sale of the 
steers fit for market. 

" The employment of from twenty to three hundred men in the manage- 
ment of these herds is not unusual ; and a thorough examination of the 
system as it exists (and it cannot be but changed in the growth of popula- 
tion, improvement of cattle, establishment of railroad-lines, and fencing the 
vast prairies) convinces the commissioners that the stock-raisers of Western 



CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS. 54 1 

Texas are legitimately engaged in a business of the greatest local impor- 
tance, indirectly affecting the whole interests of the country, and making 
subservient to the uses of man a vast area of territory which would other- 
wise be an unproductive waste. 

" With large capital, immense herds of cattle, and men and material in 
proportion, it is the conviction of the commissioners, that this interest is 
one of sufficient magnitude to have extended over it the protecting arm of 
this government : otherwise, although now of national importance, it must 
soon perish at the hands of bands of freebooters, who find a safe refuge on 
the convenient shores of our sister republic of Mexico, and the residents of 
this frontier left stripped of the fruits of years of thrift and industry. 
Wherever it is possible, stock-raisers enclose land as rapidly as their means 
will allow, and in one case forty miles of fence, between two arms of Cor- 
pus Christi Bay, have been recently built, enclosing the vast herds of Mifflin 
Kenedy. The prosperity of this region rests on the basis of quiet occupa- 
tion of the stock-ranges, and efficient protection. Where local irregularities 
do not at all affect this business, it can only be some fatal internal influence 
which will bring ruin on men thus legitimately engaged. The general fea- 
tures of horse-raising do not differ from the plan pursued with regard to 
cattle, save that more care is necessarily taken with the herds. Needed in 
large numbers for continual use, the herds of horses are generally kept 
around the headquarters of the owners, and are thus more effectually pro- 
tected. As large numbers of horses are used and worn out in the herding 
of cattle, this species of property, although a valuable adjunct to the cattle 
interest, is seldom a source of income. 

" The commissioners, having endeavored to sketch out the vast extent of 
the interests involved, proceed, with direct reference to facts, to an exami- 
nation of the past and present condition of the stock-raising interests of 
the Rio-Grande frontier. 

"At the close of the war of the Rebellion, these plains were covered 
with vast herds of cattle, largely increased during the years of the war, as 
the Northern market was closed, and cattle for the Confederacy were ob- 
tained from Northern and Eastern Texas. The evidence of all the experts 
examined before the commission establishes the alarming fact, that in this 
region the number of cattle to-day is between one-third and one-fourth of 
the number in 1866. 

" The rate of increase of cattle in Texas is thirty-three and a third per 
cent per annum, as shown by the concurrent testimony of nearly one hun- 
dred witnesses examined before the commission, embracing experts of every 
kind, citizens disinterested, and parties in interest. This opinion is fully 
confirmed by W. G. Kingsbury's ' Essay on Cattle-Raising* (Report Third 
Annual Fair of Texas, p. 41), also by Major Sweet's pamphlet (p. 6), also 
by Texas Almanac (p. 206). 

" The annual sales of beef-cattle seldom, if ever, exceed one-half the yearly 
increase, as the evidence goes to show that the cows are always kept for 



542 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

breeding purposes ; that no local disease, drought, or unusual sales have 
occurred calculated to reduce these herds below their average numbers ; 
and the records of these counties show but little, if any, complaint of local 
cattle-stealing. 

" The commissioners feel fully warranted in expressing the opinion, that 
for years past, especially since 1866, and even before, armed bands of Mexi- 
cans have continually employed the safe refuge of an adjoining territor}-, 
and the favorable river frontier, to cross from Mexico into Texas, in strong: 
parties, collect and drive away into Mexico unnumbered herds of cattle 
from this region. These thieves have, with astonishing boldness, penetrated 
at times one hundred miles, and even farther, into Texas, and by day and 
night carried on this wholesale plundering, employing force and intimidation 
in all cases where resistance or remonstrance was met with. Confederates 
living along the banks of the river have been used in this nefarious trade, 
while honest residents have been forced to keep silence, or fly. 

"The Mexican bank of the Rio Grande is occupied by numbers of 
ranches, furnishing a convenient rendezvous for these marauders, from 
whence they carry on openly their operations, often leading to conflicts. 
Pursuit to the river-bank in many cases has been mocked at ; the ineffectual 
efforts of customs-officers and inspectors have been jeered at, and this region 
made to suffer from the continual scourges of these thieves. The butchers 
of the frontier Mexican towns, the stock-dealers, and, in many cases, the 
heads of the various ranches on the Mexican side, have participated in the 
profits, encouraged the work, and protected the offenders. The Mexican 
local authorities, as a rule, civil and military, have been cognizant of these 
outrages, and have, with one or two honorable exceptions, protected the 
offenders, defeated with technical objections attempts at recovery of the 
stolen property, assisted in maintaining bands of thieves, or directly and 
openly have dealt in the plunder, or appropriated it to their personal uses. 
In all cases coming before these corrupt officials, thoroughly acquainted by 
personal and official notification and public notoriety of this serious and 
continual breach of international rights, they have either protected the 
criminal, and shared with him the property stolen, or else have confessed 
an inability to check the outrages, and punish the offenders. 

" The local authorities of Matamoras, Mier, Bagdad, Camargo, and other 
frontier Mexican towns, have been repeatedly notified of these complica- 
tions ; the United-States and Mexican military authorities have corresponded 
thereon; the supreme government of Mexico has been duly apprised of the 
state of the border by earnest correspondence of United-States civil and 
military officers, transmitted through the American minister, to which atten- 
tion is specially called; and in the opinion of the commissioners, with the 
exception of the tardy recall of Gen. Juan N. Cortina, in March, 1872, no 
step tending toward an amicable and honest vindication of the Mexican 
people has been taken ; while to evince her good faith, and earnest desire 
for the enforcement of the laws, the State of Texas has lately organized 



CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS. 543 

and maintains a system of cattle and hide inspections, in which undertaking 
she is ably seconded by the Stock-raisers' Association of Western Texas. 
Private parties have appointed local agents to protect their interests. The 
local press has appealed ineffectually to the reason of the Mexicans, and 
called in vain for the execution of the laws. u . • ^ 

" That the action of the local Mexican authorities has been characterized 
by duplicity, connivance at fraud, or a complete subserviency to a corrupt 
military rule, there seems to be but little room left for doubt; while the 
records of the military authorities of Mexico occupying the frontier (espe- 
cially the regime of Gen. Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, from 1870 to 1872) is 
one which calls for immediate action on the part of the Mexican Govern- 
ment in disavowing the acts, disgracing the offenders, and effecting, with the 
victims of these high-handed outrages, such an adjustment of their claims 
as impartial justice requires. 

"Under the tryincr circumstances of being confronted on the opposite 
bank of the Rio Grande by a foreign army, which has given protection for 
a series of years to the invaders of American territory, the United States 
has, through its officers, kept peace, preserved neutrality, and acted with 
candor and justice, mindful of its long-established friendly feeling for a 
sister republic. The left bank of the Rio Grande has always been sought 
as a base for insurrectionary operations against the ephemeral governments 
of Mexico ; and the United States has, in all cases, acted with commendable 
promptness in maintaining strict neutrality. 

"While the United States has improved every opportunity to execute m 
o-ood faith her treaty obhgations, and settle on an equitable and just basis 
all existing differences with the Repubhc of Mexico; and while the State 
of Texas has taxed her treasury to execute laws unnecessary, save to repel 
the invasion of her territory by Mexican outlaws, who have made life and 
property unsafe on her soil, the theatre of their cold-blooded and brutal 
murders -the evidence adduced before the commission warrants the con- 
elusion, ihat the indifference on the part of the Mexican Government, touch- 
her international obligations and the condition of affairs on her northern 



ine 



frontier, has been studied. . 

"The harassing question of the Zona Libre does not fall within the 
province of the commissioners to examine ; but they feel called on to notice 
the extension of this zone, in opposition to the most friendly remonstrances 
of the United States, as another evidence of the spirit which has character- 
ized the policy of the Mexican Government in its dealings with the United 
States for a series of years. ^ ^ 

" In o-iving a resume of the evidence taken before the commission, touch- 
mcr the disorders on the frontier, we trace this cause primarily to the effete, 
corrupt, and, in many instances, powerless, local civil authorities of Northern 
Mexico, the almost universal demoralization of the inhabitants of the Mexi- 
can frontier, the supremacy of a corrupt and overbearing military influence, 
givino- form and aid to the lawless expeditions that have been set on foot in 



544 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Mexico for years past to invade and plunder the exposed frontier of West- 
ern Texas, the unfriendly legislation on the part of the law-making power 
of the Republic of Mexico, which has made the Zona Libre, on the right 
bank of the Rio Grande, a depot on our immediate line for the reception of 
goods, duty free, to be smuggled over our borders, with the annual loss to 
us of millions of revenue, or the alternative of studding this portion of our 
western boundary with an expensive army of customs-inspectors. The 
establishment of this 'free zone ' ^^r se militated against the commercial 
interests of the United States; and when followed up by the appointment 
of Brigadier-Gen. Juan N. Cortina to the command of the line of the Bravo, 
in 1870, where he remained in command until March, 1872, — the terror of 
the residents of the Texan frontier, and the aider and participant in a series 
of lawless acts, — the action of the Mexican authorities in this regard can 
only be interpreted as a direct blow at the commerce of our western fron- 
tier ; and the maintenance of a military force there under the leadership of 
a commander whose career for murder, arson, and robbery, finds no parallel 
in the annals of crime, and whose retention in the command of the northern 
frontier of Mexico puts in evidence the inability of the Mexican Government 
to cope with this outlaw and his followers ; or else his assignment to this 
position by his government for the performance of a work which had for its 
object the annihilation of the commercial and industrial interests of our 
southern frontier. . . . The amount of property taken and destroyed, the 
long continuance, with impunity, of these outrages upon our soil by Mexi- 
cans crossing our borders in the presence of the army of the United States 
and the authority of a sovereign State of this Union, are matters of suffi- 
cient public concern, in our judgment, to require at our hands, even at the 
risk of being considered tedious, a statement in detail of the manner in 
which these cattle-thieves have carried on their illicit traffic for so many 
years, in defiance of the civil and military authorities charged with the duty 
of giving protection to the lives and property of the residents on our frontier. 

" The character and extent of the territory on which these depredations 
have been committed for so many years past offer facilities for the commis- 
sion of crime not to be found in any other part of this country. Expeditions 
for the purpose of cattle-stealing in Texas have generally been organized 
on the right bank of the Rio Grande, in the State of Tamaulipas, although 
not unfrequently, as a change of base, in the State of Coahuila. The men 
engaged in this work are Mexicans, well mounted, carrying fire-arms of the 
most approved pattern, and not unfrequently belong to the regular army of 
Mexico. 

"Thoroughly acclimated, and accustomed to the hardships and exposure 
incident to a frontier life, these bands, mounted, armed and provisioned for 
the expedition, have but the shallow water of the Rio Grande and a journey 
of from one to three days before them, often without water for man or beast, 
ere they reach the grazing-regions of the Nueces, and the numerous herds 
of cattle to be found in that valley. Systematic in all their movements, and 



CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS. 



545 



thoroughly conversant with the routes of travel, and the water-holes leading 
to the grass-regions, these bands, when ready, lose no time in dividing 
themselves into squads, averaging five or more, according to the circum- 
stances surrounding them; and crossing at different points the Rio Grande, 
a stream whose sinuosities describe every point of the compass, they enter 
the dense mesquite fringing its banks, and emerge from it into the high- 
ways, or continue on their journey under its cover, as may best suit their 
purpose, until they 
reach the place of 
rendezvous, desig- 
nated by scouts pre- 
viously sent out. 

" Having made 
their selection of cat- 
tle from the herds, 
not unfrequently to 
the number of six- 
teen hundred, ac- 
cord i n g to their 
necessities and the 
circumstances of the 
case, no time is lost 
in pushing them, 
without rest, under 
the cover of night 
(or in open day if 
strong enough to re- 
sist attack), to the 
river; a point hav- 
ing been previously 
desio^nated for this 

purpose, at which they are met by confederates, coming from the Mexican 
bank, with every facility — including cattle, boats, etc. — for the rapid transit 
of their booty to Mexican soil, where it is used by the Mexican army, dis- 
posed of to the butchers of Matamoras, Mier, and Camargo, sold in open 
market for the benefit of the thieves, or, after being re-branded, used to 
stock the ranches on the Mexican frontier. The crossing of these bands of 
Mexicans in small squads into Texas attracts no attention there, for it is 
within the bounds of the probabilities of the case to estimate the Mexicans 
as composing at least eighty per cent of the entire population of the frontier 
of Western Texas." 

Since the foregoing report was made by the congressional 
committee, a committee of the State Legislature of Texas 
reported, that, on the Lower Rio Grande, the depredations 
35 




MEXICAN HORSE-THIEVES CROSSING THE RIO GRANDE. 



546 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

had increased to such an extent, that only ten per cent now 
remained of the vast herds that had a few years before 
covered the plains adjacent to the Mexican border. 

Capt. McNally, in charge of a company of State troops, 
reported, Dec. 14, 1875, to Gen. Potter, that in seventeen 
days more than two thousand head of cattle had been stolen 
in Texas, and carried into Mexico. 

Our government has repeatedly informed the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, that United-States troops would cross into Mexico, 
and punish the raiders, if the Mexican Government could not 
stop the raids. The Mexican Government admits its inability 
to prevent the raiding of the Mexicans and Indians into Texas. 
Senor Lafragua, the Mexican minister of foreign affairs, gives 
three reasons why his government is powerless, — first, the 
troops would desert if sent to the frontier ; second, the in- 
ternal condition of the country renders it impossible to spare 
troops ; and, third, the state of the national treasury would not 
justify the expense. 

What the Mexican Government and the Mexican people lack 
in strength they make up in pride. They are not able to stop 
the raiding themselves, and too proud to let us do it for them. 
When our soldiers cross the Rio Grande in pursuit of cattle- 
thieves and murderers, the Mexicans call it an '^ invasion," and 
they bluster and snort. They go off and eat some beans to 
give them courage, and then they talk with astonishing fluency 
and presumption about war. 

When our government calls their attention to some extraor- 
dinary outrage perpetrated by Mexicans on our citizens, they 
say that they will attend to it directly, or as soon as they 
have put down the revolution that they have on hand at the 
time. But they pay no more attention to the matter, knowing 
that the United States never insists on redress for wrongs done 
her citizens. The Mexicans know that our government will 
talk and investigate, and talk and pass resolutions, and then 
talk some more about the matter, and that it will all end in the 
report of a congressional committee. So they merely listen 
with courteous attention to our complaints, and then, with 
great magnanimity and condescension, drop the subject. 



MILD LANGUAGE BY HAMILTON FISH, 547 

The United-States Government reminds one of tlie man who 
was severely kicked on the frontier of his person, so to speak, 
and who did not resent the indignity because he never paid 
attention to any thing that happened behind his back. 

I would consider it a personal favor if the reader would not 
skip the following correspondence : — 

[Mr. Fish to Mr. Nelson.] 

Department of State, Washington, Feb. 7, 1871. 

Sir, — I transmit a copy of the reply of the secretary of war to the 
letter of this department, which was accompanied by a copy of your 
despatch. No. 'T^^i^d, of the loth ultimo, relative to Indian affairs. It 
will be noticed that the secretary of war deems it advisable that the 
required consent of the Mexican Congress to the entrance of United- 
States troops into that republic, near the frontier, for the purpose referred 
to, should be obtained. You will consequently adopt such measures 
for that purpose as may seem to you proper, and likely to be successful. 
In a matter, however, which must, if not judiciously managed, wound 
the sensibilities of a people so averse to any thing like an invasion of 
their soil by foreigners, it will be necessary to move with great delicacy 
and caution, not merely with a view to compass the object desired, but 
to avoid giving offence by even proposing it. Confidence, however, is 

reposed in your discretion. ^ 

^ •' I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 

[Mr. Fish to Mr. Nelson.] 

Department of State, Washington, Feb. 27, 1872. 

Sir, — I transmit a copy of a letter of the 23d instant, and of the 
papers which accompanied it, addressed to this department by the 
secretary of the interior, relative to depredations by Kickapoo In- 
dians from Mexico upon Texas. It is represented, that, in making 
these depredations, those savages were encouraged, if not instigated, by 
Mexicans. You will again make a representation upon this subject to 
the Mexican minister for foreign affairs. It must be obvious to that 
government, that the savages referred to cannot fail to occasion great 
irritation among those citizens of Texas who suffer from them ; and 
that, in the interest of the good understanding which we are desirous 
of maintaining with the Mexican Republic, the government of that 
republic is expected to exert its authority toward checking the raids 

of the robbers adverted to. t 

I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



548 ' ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

If the reader is a citizen of the United States, he will be 
pleased to learn that the United-States Government deprecates " 
the raids of the Mexicans so much, that its foreign secretary 
calls the attention of the Mexican Government to the fact that 
these ravages cannot fail to occasion ''great irritation" among 
the people of Texas who suffer from them ; and he will no 
doubt feel proud of the " great delicacy and caution " evinced 
by his government in dealing with a people whose sensibilities 
are easily wounded. He will doubtless be disgusted with the 
arrogant tone of the following letter from the representative of 
the English Government, — a government that has become cele- 
brated for protecting its rights and subjects, regardless of 
whether its action should " wound the sensibilities " of foreia:n ' 
governments or not. As the reader can make his own com- 
parison between Mr. Fish's style and that of Lord John Rus- 
sell, further comment by me would be superfluous. 

[Earl Russell to Sir C. Wyke.] 

Foreign Office. 

Sir, — I have received your despatches of the 26th and 28th of July, 
and I have to convey to you the entire approval of her Majesty's gov- 
ernment of your conduct as therein reported. 

The suspension for two years, of all payments in discharge of debt, at 
a time when the Mexican Government can afford to spend six million 
dollars in six months, is a shameless breach of faith, which cannot be in 
the slightest degree excused by the pretences put forward by Senor 
Zamacona in its defence. 

Senor Zamacona asserts that the present government of Mexico are 
actively employed in maintaining internal and social order, in re-organiz- 
ing the administration of the republic, in introducing rigid economy 
into all the branches of the pubhc service, and in vigorously putting an 
end to the civil war, and restoring internal peace to the country. But 
it is notorious that every one of these assertions is directly the reverse 
of the truth. It is well known that life and property are nowhere safe, 
not even in the streets of the capital ; that the administration is as cor- 
rupt, and reckless of any interests but their own personal advantage, as 
any that has heretofore governed in Mexico ; that great anarchy and 
disorder prevail in all the departments of the government ; and that, so 
far from their having applied the resources of the State to a vigorous 
suppression of the civil war, the opposite party, under the adherents of 



STRONG LANGUAGE BY EARL RUSSELL. 549 

Miramon, were, by the last accounts, in great force within a short dis- 
tance of the capital, and not unlikely to become its masters. 

Her Majesty's government, it is needless to say, cannot accept such 
excuses for the wrongs of which her Majesty's subjects in Mexico have 
been the victims ; and therefore, if the proposals contained in my 
despatches of the 21st ultimo are not accepted by the Mexican Govern- 
ment, you will finally break off relations, and put yourself in communi- 
cation with Rear- Admiral Milne, who will receive instructions from the 

admiralty on this subject. 

I am, etc., 

Russell. 




550 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XL. 



^l" 











='?' 



WE approached the Rio Grande, 
we found very few cattle ; but 
herds of sheep were in sight 
all the time. With most of 
the herds there were from fifty 
to a hundred goats. Upon in- 
quiry we learned that the goats 
are kept because their flesh is 
the cheapest and most available 
meat that can be had. The 
shepherds like it better than 
mutton. 

y .'./' * ' -.' y-' " The reporter is responsible 

.f^' ^ ' •^■'' for the facts in the following : — 

^f- -.^ A commission was sent to 

Texas in 1872 to investigate the 
border outrages. While the committee was in session, an 
Italian named Champini, the owner of a stage-line, appeared, 
by his attorney, Col. ** Rip " Ford, and presented a claim for 
compensation. The petition prayed for indemnification for a 
herd of one hundred and fifty goats stolen from him in 1867. 
Champini claimed direct and indirect loss. He asked to be paid 
for the natural increase of the original herd. Goat -raisers were 
examined, and testified as to the average increase of the goat. 
Jesus Villereal and others stated, that, in Cameron County, goats 
had two families annually, — not less than two, often three, at 
each effort. Upon this basis Col. Ford was instructed to make 
such calculation as would demonstrate the exact number of goats 
that the original herd would have increased to at that time. 



''TEXAS WON'T HOLD HER GOATS:' 55 1 

After trying the rule of three, geometrical progression, and 
all the rules of ascending series, he concluded that they did 
not, somehow, suit the case. By these rules he found more 
o-oats than he knew what to do with. He scratched his ear, 
and swore in an undertone. 

Major Savage had meanwhile made the calculation. Noti- 
cing the perplexity of Col. Ford, he inquired, " Colonel, haven't 
you found out all the goats yet } " 

"Damn the goats !" said the colonel : ''they seem to me to 
multiply in the most unreasonable way. Let me see. A goat 
has three kids in March, and two in September. Then the 
March kids have young when they are eighteen months old, 
and by that time — well, in short, I make it two million five 
hundred and twenty-one thousand and eighteen goats. The 
Lord help us ! If the figures don't lie, and the goat-business 
ain't stopped, in ten years, sir, Texas won't hold her goats." 

"Your calculation is quite correct," said Major Savage. 

There was present during the investigation a German who 
had just collected a claim for loss of five mules stolen by Mexi- 
cans. He became very much excited when he heard the result 
of the goat calculation. He addressed the committee as fol- 
lows : " Schentlemens, I vants natural ingreese on mine mooles, 
by tarn ! It was not fair to giff ingreese on der goats, und not 
on der . mooles. I vants dot -schentlemans vat gounted der 
goats to poot some off dot figuring on mine mooles." 

The committee tried to explain to the German that the figur- 
ing that suited goats would not work when applied to mules ; 
but he was too much excited to understand it at the time. 

The Rio Grande runs exactly over the line laid down as the 
boundary between the United States and Mexico, owing to 
which singular coincidence the river has been adopted as the 
boundary. The Mexicans call the Rio Grande the Rio Bravo. 
The latter word means turbulent, brawling. The Rio Grande 
is a very long river at some seasons of the year, and at others 
it is much shorter. During the summer of 1869 the bed of 
the river was perfectly dry for a distance of one hundred and 
fifty miles above El Paso. So permanent was this dryness, 
that the people planted corn in the middle of the river-bed. 



552 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

During the spring, it is not only a long, but a wide stream, 
and is liable to tremendous floods, that overflow the banks, and 
desolate the surrounding country. 

I have said that the Rio Grande is the boundary between 
Mexico and Texas. When the river is up and is a mile wide, 
with a depth sufficient to float a man-of-war, it is then regarded 
as the boundary-line by the Mexican raiders. When the river 
is shallow, and the moon is full, the boundary-line cannot be 
perceived by the Mexicans. In the treaty between the United 
States and Mexico, the middle of the stream is declared the 
boundary ; but, when there is not any stream, of course there 
cannot be any boundary-line. 

The chief peculiarity of the Rio Grande is its crookedness. 
It is said to be almost as crooked as the transactions of the 
custom-house officials on its banks. Wonderful stories are 
told of the crookedness of the stream. It is navigable for 
some distance from its mouth ; but boats have to twist and 
turn so much, that they get weak in the back, and loose in the 
rivets, in less than a week's run. A steamboat-captain tells it 
as a fact that he once ran into another vessel that was steam- 
ing ahead of him. He saw the lights on the other vessel, but 
thought they were those on the stern of his own boat. If the 
captain's statement was not true, then the story itself is very 
strong evidence that the crookedness of the river affects the 
minds of those who have any thing to do with it. No steam- 
boat-captain accustomed to a straight river could possibly in- 
vent such a story. 

There is a very marked resemblance between the Rio Grande 
and the natives who live on its banks. They are both of a 
dirty coffee-color. The question arises. Does the Mexican get 
his color from the river, or vice versa ? Undoubtedly from 
vice versa, and not from the river. It is true that certain insects 
partake of the nature of the plants that they graze on, the tree- 
frog, for instance ; but the Mexican does not graze on the river. 
If he bathed in it a great deal, the river might be accused of be- 
ing responsible for the Mexican's complexion. But since a ferry- 
boat, in 1848, was upset near Matamoras, in the Rio Grande, few 
instances of Mexicans bathin^f in the river have been cited. 



A REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCE, 



553 



On one other occasion a party of Mexicans were induced to 
try the Rio-Grande water by a squad of United-States cavalry. 
They disliked very much to violate the traditions of their 
fathers by wetting themselves. They were in the State of 
Texas and in a state of indecision, and it was death to stay 
there. They crossed over the river that day — but it was not 
the Rio Grande. 

In many other respects there is a remarkable resemblance 
between the Rio Grande and the Mexican. Both are frequently 




CROSSING THE RIVER. 



dry, with the difference that the river needs water, while the 
Mexican requires aqua dieitte or mescale. The Rio Grande is 
guilty of sudden risings : so are the Mexicans. Both uprisings 
desolate the country, and cause the loss of much life and prop- 
erty. After the river has spread all over the country, it as 
suddenly subsides : so with the Mexican revolutions. There is 
no telling when they may occur or subside. The channel of 
the river is another uncertain thing. Nobody knows where to 
look for it to-morrow. There is no fixed channel. To-day it 
will be breaking into a bank on the Mexican side : next day 
it will be meandering over the prairies on the American side, 



554 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. . 

carrying off property that does not belong to it. It is just so 
with the Mexican. It is hard to say which side of the Rio 
Grande he properly belongs to. He is, however, in the habit 
of regarding all loose property, on either side, as belonging to 
himself ; and he carries it off. The Mexican who claims to be 
a Mexican citizen, and lives over in Mexico, is as much like 
the Mexican who lives in Texas, and claims to be a citizen of the 
United States, as one buzzard is like another : in fact, he is 
often one and the same individual. When there is an election 
going on in Texas, you will see and hear him about the polls, 
as full of whiskey and party pride as if he were a simon-pure 
American. He can swear as fluently in English as if he knew 
no other tongue ; and he has become so thoroughly American- 
ized, that he will vote in two or three wards, and perjure himself, 
with a facility that puts the American to the blush. He can 
also hold two or three offices at the same time, and draw their 
salaries, as readily as if he had red hair and blue eyes, and his 
name were Mike. As an American juror he has no equal, and 
as a witness he has no superior. He can swear to an unlimited 
number of lies before a jury, with a consistency of statement 
and a placidity of demeanor that make him the envy of the 
white races represented on the Rio Grande. He can even 
make Fourth-of-July speeches, and, if he sees money in it, 
hurl sarcasms and invectives at the perfidious mongrel who 
infests the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. And yet, per- 
haps, the very next week after going through all these truly 
American accomplishments, you may find him over in Mexico, 
at the head of a gang of ruffians who would have put Falstaff's 
recruits to blush, carrying on a revolution in the name of God 
and liberty. 

This arrangement, by which the Rio-Grande Mexican can be 
a citizen of two countries, as circumstances may require, is of 
great advantage. Occasionally he gets into trouble. He is 
found riding a horse that bears a strong resemblance to one 
that was stolen in Texas. When the trial comes off, a cloud of 
witnesses from the Mexican side of the river appear in court, 
and fully establish the complete innocence of the accused by 
proving, that, at the time the horse was stolen, the accused was 



A CITIZEN OF TIVO COUNTRIES. 



555 



in jail in Mexico for highway robbery, or it >s proved that he is 
a Mexican citizen; therefore that the courts on this side o 
thf river have no jurisdiction whatever under the treaty If 
he is arrested in Mexico, he sets up his American citizenship, 

nr establishes an alibt. 

When the Mexican authorities are applying for volunteers, 
the Mexicans come over to this side, and are American citizens.' 



y ,._ 







MEXICAN VOLUNTEERS. 

That the Mexican volunteers should fly to this side of the river 
may seen strange to those not acquainted with Mexican affairs, 
and requires explanation. The Mexican word is Mano^ 
The vo/untarios are first caught, very much as the English 
used to catch their sailors. A big ball, or fiesto, is given to 
which all the Mexicans within convenient distance are mvited. 
There are sounds of revelry by night, and all goes merry as 
an unmarried belle. Suddenly the place is surrounded by 



556 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

soldiers, who capture all the able-bodied men, and make volun- 
taries of them by tying them together, by the hands, to a long 
rope. Gen. Don Miguel de Casabianca, in his report to the 
Mexican Government, has an item of expense : " Three dollars 
for one hundred feet of rope to tie volunteers with." 

As the public mind is very much occupied just now with 
Mexico and Mexican affairs, a few lines on the cause of revo- 
lutions in that country may not be without value, particularly 
as it is a subject on which even the people of Texas, excepting 
those living along the Rio Grande, are not very well informed. 
The popular idea is, that the Mexican people are opposed to all 
legal restraint, always ready to raise the standard of revolt, 
being afflicted with a chronic disposition to become unruly and 
turbulent. No greater delusion exists. The Mexicans are the 
very reverse of quarrelsome. They do not care who governs 
their country, and will stand, without a murmur, an almost, 
unlimited degree of official exaction and tyranny. They are 
naturally indolent, and opposed to any superfluous exertion, or 
undue excitement of any kind. Why, then, are there so many 
petty revolutions and counter-revolutions springing up in dif- 
ferent parts of the vast territory of our sister republic } 

The explanation can be given in a word, — the custom- 
houses. Where the carcass is, there will the buzzards be 
gathered together. A Mexican frontier town that has the bad 
luck not to be provided with a custom-house enjoys uninter- 
rupted peace and order. No such tranquillity can be found any- 
where in the United States, unless it be in some secluded 
graveyard. On the other hand, a Mexican town that enjoys 
suflicient commercial prosperity to justify the establishment of 
a custom-house suffers all the horrors of war every few months. 
The houses are riddled with bullets, and the public buildings 
are out of repair, owing to the use of bombshells. The people 
receive \.\i€vc pronunciamentos as regularly as if they subscribed 
and paid in advance for them ; and, as for \Q.vy\xvg prestimas, the 
science is taught in the schools. 

In nine cases out of ten the men who get up a revolution in 
Mexico are not Mexicans at all, but foreigners, -^ Americans, 
Hebrews, Germans, or whoever the merchants doing business 



no IV REVOLUTIONS ARE STARTED. 



557 



in the custom-house town may be. Allow me to introduce the 
dramatis personce who take parts in that highly entertaining 
farce entitled " Latest News from Mexico." 

Don Jacob Anybody, a foreign merchant doing business at 
the port of Alguna Parte in Mexico. 

Gen. Jose Maria Sinverguenza, a professional revolutionist 
and experienced loafer, out of employment. He is a Lerdo 
man. 

Gen. Jesus de Bendejo, a perfect match to the foregoing in 
all particu- 
lars, except 
that he is for 
Diaz, and is 
in possession 
of the custom- 
house. 

Citizens, 
p e I a d s 
(scum), riff- 
raff, soldiers, 
God,andliber- 
ty, a few bush- 
els of beans, 
Don Dinero, 
and other re- 
quisites, in- 
cludins: sev- 
eral gallons 
of mescale. 

The whole matter is easily arranged. Don Anybody, the 
foreign merchant, who is obliged to pay duties at the custom- 
house, has become convinced that a local revolution is indis- 
pensable to the public prosperity, and his own too. He has an 
interview with Gen. Sinverguenza, who is found loafing about 
the saloons, or playing monte. The merchant tells him about 
the unconstitutionality of the claims of the present incumbent 
of the custom-house, how the sacred rights of the citizens are 
trampled under foot, how the present government is truckling 




GEN. SINVERGUENZA AND HIS TROOPS. 



558 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



to the Gringos, how the whole Mexican people are looking to 
him, Sinverguenza, as their coming Moses. Fortune is wink- 
ing at him. Why does he hesitate to draw his sword, and pro- 
nounce in favor of Lerdo, or whatever may be the name of the 
president at the time .'' 

Gen. Sinverguenza replies that he would cheerfully wade 
about in gore if he only had the money to meet his travelling- 
expenses. Don Anybody responds that he loves his adopted 
Mexico too hotly to hesitate loaning the heroic Sinverguenza 
all the money he needs : he will lend him enough to bribe the 
hirelings of the Pendejo army, who are guarding the custom- 
house, and to hire about forty more cattle-thieves to drive out 
the opposition, provided, that, as soon as Sinverguenza is in 
possession of the custom-house, he will give his friend the 
merchant permits to pass in goods without any duty on them. 

But it is tedious to follow this mournful farce. Gen. Sinver- 
guenza, inspired by the sacred fire from the altar of liberty, 
and by the money he receives from the patriotic foreign mer- 
chant, at the head of perhaps forty or fifty rapscallions, falls 
upon the custom-house party tooth and nail. Gen. Pendejo 
calls out his tried and trusty henchmen, most of whom have 
already been bought up at a dollar a head by the enemy ; and 
the result is, that he and his few adherents who have not sold 
out are chased out of town. Sometimes a man gets acci- 
dentally shot by the careless handling of fire-arms ; but, as a 
general thing, both sides are so careful, that the revolution is 
bloodless. 

Then Gen. Sinverguenza has the custom-house, and is in 
clover. He pronounces in favor of the president who put the 
other fellow in. And that good man, the foreign merchant, 
does not miss the reward for his generous devotion to the Con- 
stitution. He pays no duties on his goods : and you may be 
sure he makes hay while the sun shines ; for he knows it will 
not be long before his rival in trade will be hunting up the 
fugitive Pendejo, whom he will subsidize by glowing words of 
patriotism, and some cash, to run the intruder, Sinverguenza, 
out, so that he, the rival merchant, can make a little profit too, 
in the way of exemption from paying duties on the goods he 



HOW REVOLUTIONS ARE STARTED. 559 

imports. As for the dear people, they take about as much 
interest in it as they do in the Eastern war question. Thanks 
to the foreign merchant, *'The New-York Herald" and other 
leading papers are informed that Gen. Soandso has done this 
or that, and it reads as if the poor Mexicans were always spoil- 
ing for a fight ; whereas, in nine cases out of ten, these petty 
revolutions are carried on in the interest of the merchants who 
advance the sinews of war. 

The Rio-Grande country is the usual place in which revolu- 
tions are started. The advantages are numerous and manifest. 
In the first place, the country along the Rio Grande on the 
Texas side is admirably adapted for organizing bands of 
patriots. There is also abundance of material at hand, — 
murderers, horse-thieves, and other similar characters, who 
naturally feel a deep interest in bringing about a reform in the 
government. The population is almost wholly Mexican ; and, 
the country being mostly jungle, the conspirators are protected 
alike from the regular troops of both governments. When 
every thing is ready, the coming president, at the head of forty 
or fifty hired ragamuffins who would be a disgrace to an ordi- 
nary penitentiary, crosses over into Mexico, captures some 
small town, issues a proclamation that reads like a circus- 
poster, persuades a few wealthy Mexicans to advance a thou- 
sand dollars at the muzzle of the musket, and the revolution is 
under way. From a small beginning like this, Mexican states- 
men have driven presidents into exile, and occupied their 
places. Again : if the revolutionary forces are defeated at the 
start, they can readily fall back across the Rio Grande, and 
wait for a more convenient season. At all events, they are 
safe from being shot. 

But this is not the only advantage the Rio Grande affords 
the Mexican revolutionist. From the Texas side he draws the 
horses on which he can seek a place of safety, and the beeves 
with which he prevents the walls of his stomach from irritating 
each other. Another thing that makes the Rio Grande a most 
desirable revolutionary stream is its great distance from the 
city of Mexico. As the revolutionist can select his own point 
on the fourteen hundred miles of Rio-Grande boundary, he 



56o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

usually prefers a point where there are no government troops 
to make dough of his cakes. Before the authorities at the city 
of Mexico can have a force within striking-distance, the revo- 
lution has grown to be too large to handle. This is a great 
advantage. In fact, the Rio Grande has been invaluable to 
the Mexican people. The great national pastime has been 
revolutions, and without the Rio Grande no revolution would 
be practicable. In fact, the history of Mexico is little else 
besides the successive marches of Mexican generals from the 
Rio Grande to the city of Mexico. As every Mexican presi- 
dent must reasonably expect to be run out, and have to start 
in again on the Rio Grande, he is naturally very anxious to 
keep on good terms with the natives, and particularly the lead- 
ing men of the frontier. As these leading men are pecuniarily 
interested in the stock stolen from Texas, — it being their pro- 
fession to deal in any thing that belongs to other people, — it 
is not to be expected that the Mexican president is going to 
take active measures to suppress raiding, and thereby make 
mortal enemies of the men he is liable at any time to have to 
call on for assistance in getting up a revolution to oust the 
men who ousted him. Besides, it is contrary to public policy 
to interfere with or curtail the legitimate and time-honored 
business of the people. All remonstrances on the part of the 
Washington authorities have been received with every demon- 
stration of profound respect, and then stored away in the waste- 
basket with the rest of the protests already on file. That the 
Mexican Government should stir up a hornet's nest on the Rio 
Grande merely to accommodate a lot of Gringos is, to the 
Mexican mind, an absurdity. The idea of turning over a Mexi- 
can criminal to the American authorities is regarded as a crime; 
and the Mexican official who even suggests such a thing is 
ruined forever. This is no fancy sketch ; for when, in 1876, 
one of the Mexican banditti who broke open the jail at Rio 
Grande City, murdered and wounded several American officials, 
and liberated a choice assortment of Mexican cut-throats, — 
when one of the most insignificant of these men was turned 
over to the Americans, Diaz, who ordered it, was fearfully de- 
nounced in the most opprobrious language. He was even called 



MILITARY COURTESY. 56 1 

a "friend of the Gringos." A prominent Mexican paper on the 
Rio Grande, the leading journal, — almost as large as a sheet of 
foolscap, — had at the head of its editorial columns the taunt, 
•' Is Diaz a Mexican ? " The Mexican president who undertook 
to interfere, and hamper the trade of the country, was no longer 
popular. It was the case of makers of images of the great Diana 
of the Ephesians over again. ''Thereby they had great gains." 

There is, moreover, a wide-spread delusion as to the proper 
ownership of Texas. The Mexicans are still disposed to regard 
it as a part of Mexico, never having really accepted the situa- 
tion caused by the war. To them it is Mexican territory, par- 
ticularly at the full of the moon and at such times as the Rio 
Grande is fordable. In the mean time raids become absolutely 
intolerable. 

The soil on the Mexican side seems to be very much the 
same as that on the American side ; but, if American troops 
cross over into Mexico, every Mexican, from the president 
down, or up, as the case may be, sits upon end, and howls. 
All Mexico is stirred up. So intense is the excitement, that, 
while the Mexican editor writes fiery articles with one hand, 
he brandishes his sword in the other, and prepares to march to 
the Rio Grande en rotite to Washington. Everybody, even 
those who have wooden legs, fairly ache to wade about in blood. 
The Mexican who hesitates to express his firm conviction that 
he can eat from five to ten Gringos before breakfast is accused 
of lacking public spirit. 

Now, when a body of Mexican cavalry, in pursuit of thieves, 
follow them over into Texas, the American people do not get 
excited about it. The United-States troops tender their as- 
sistance in capturing the banditti ; and the Mexican cavalry can 
prance about on Texas soil as much as they please, without 
awakening any desire on the part of the Americans to organize 
an excursion to revel in the halls of the three-card 'Monte- 
zumas. If the Mexican soldiers in Texas require any rations 
or ammunition, the United-States Government will esteem it a 
favor if it is allowed to supply them. The United-States 
officers invite the Mexicans to visit the posts, receive them 
with a salute, and drink prosperity to Mexico. 
36 



562 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Now, this sensitiveness on the part of the Mexican people 
furnished the clew how to undo the Gordian knot without cut- 
ting it with the sword. Heretofore the American troops had 
respected the Rio-Grande boundary. They had orders not to 
cross over, for there was a profound peace at Washington 
between the sister republics. The Mexicans did not fear to 
violate the neutrality laws. There were occasions, however, 
when the Mexican-Indian raiders religiously abstained from 
crossing the boundary-line under any circumstances whatever. 
One of these seasons was when the raiders were overtaken by 
the Texans on our side, before they got to the river. 

When the Rio Grande is booming, sixty feet deep, and five 
miles wide, the Mexicans uphold rigidly the neutrality laws, 
never making the slightest attempt to cross over. At all other 
times, however, the boundary-line has no actual existence, as 
far as they are concerned. After crossing the river with the 
stolen stock, they will deliberately camp on the Mexican bank, 
and wait for the worn-out and exhausted United-States troops 
to come up ; so that they can call over, and ask if they are tired, 
and impart to them good advice in bad Spanish. The Mexi- 
cans heretofore depended on the law-abiding qualities of the 
Americans. Gen. Mackenzie put an end to all that. To the 
horror of all patriotic Mexicans, Gen. Mackenzie followed a lot 
of Indians across the Rio Grande, killed a number of them, 
and brousiht fortv or fiftv over to this side of the river. AH 
Mexico was shocked. This meant war to the knife. The idea 
of ta1<ing away the Indians who supplied the Mexican market 
with horses was positively sacrilegious. " Now let the perfidi- 
ous colossus of the North prepare to tremble ! " wrote the fiery 
Mexican editor, as he gulped down a mess of beans to supply 
the necessary elan. 

" I perpetrated an amusing fraud on the people of both sides 
of the river when I was local editor of the San Antonio 
* Express,' " said the reporter one night, as we lay in camp on 
the Texas bank of the Rio Grande. 

"How did you do it .^ " said the doctor. "Not that we care 
to know, but we see you feel bound to tell it." 

" Stir up the fire, and hand me over those saddle-bags, and 



MEXICAN BRAVADO. 563 

I'll show you the documents," replied the reporter. "Here," 
said he, "is a cutting from 'The New-York Herald' of Jan. 8, 
1878. I'll read it for you. 



MEXICAN BLUSTER. 

A LOCAL JOURNAL THAT HAS HUMILL\TED THE UNITED STATES. — THE 
WHIP THAT CANALES USED UPON THE "BIG DOGS" AT WASHINGTON. 

[From the San-Antonio Express.] 

It appears, from late Mexican papers that lie before us, that the war- 
party in Mexico has gained an extraordinary impetus from the course 
our government has pursued in denying that Mexican citizens were not 
entitled to the honor and credit of murdering Howard and the other 
Gringos at San Elizario. It is beheved by nearly all classes of Mexicans 
that war is inevitable, unless the United-States troops are removed at 
once from the line of the Rio Grande, and other reparations made 
without delay. This may appear strange to many who have been cul- 
tivating the delusion that Mexico was afraid of the United States ; but 
the following translation from "The Conibate," the leading journal, 
''The New-York Herald" of Mexico, so to speak, leaves no room for 
doubt. 

MEXICAN BRAVADO. 

Says "The Combate," "We admit willingly that the Yankees are an 
inferior race to the descendants of Cortez, Montezuma, and Hidalgo, 
and that they are below our resentment. They are even below our 
contempt. Hence Mexico can gain no honor by conquering them, and 
the national honor of Mexico cannot be involved at all. It is not a 
fight between two nations. It is like a gentleman whipping a cur that 
has barked at him. We must teach these Gringo dogs good manners, 
that's all. We thought the height of Yankee insolence had been reached 
when they demanded the extradition of the heroes of tlie storming of 
the Rio Grande city jail. Gen. Canales merely raised his whip, and 
the big dogs at Washington howled for mercy. They appealed to the 
generosity of the great Mexican people, and that is an appeal that is 
never made in vain. We could afford to be magnanimous to a mon- 
grel race of Yankees, Niggers, Dutch, and like canaille, that for twenty- 
five years have cowered before Mexico. We overlooked their indiscre- 
tion. We expected they would not again dare to lift their hand toward 
Mexico, but it seems we were mistaken. 



564 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

'* And was there really such an article as that in * The Corn- 
bate ' ? " inquired the doctor. 

" No, sir ; and that is where the point of the joke is. I manu- 
factured the whole thing, and what I have read is not one-fourth 
of it : 1 stretched it to three-quarters of a column, all in the 
same strain. It was so very Hke the real thing, so closely 
resembled the usual bombastic style of the Mexican editor, 
that the Mexicans themselves were deceived, and, without 
questioning the authenticity of the article, many Mexican resi- 
dents of the United States wrote to the papers, making excuses 
for the warlike tone of 'The Combate ' article, and denying 
that ' The Combate * represented the people of Mexico in its 
wild utterances. Here is ' The New-York Herald's ' editorial 
comment on the article : — 

'' 'The agents of Diaz, the present Mexican president, have been whisper- 
ing soft words of peace and brotherly love into the ears of our government 
at Washington. They have sought recognition for their chief, and their 
promises have been as hberal^as their persuasive tongues could make them. 
President Diaz, we have been told, is to preserve peace on his side of the 
border, and is to prevent in the future the raids by which our Texan citizens 
have suffered so severely in the past. In view of the reported assignment 
of Mexican regulars to the Rio Grande for this praiseworthy and friendly 
purpose, we have protested against any policy which might render it possi- 
ble for the two nations to get embroiled through the indiscreet act of some 
hot-headed or thoughtless individual. But these peaceful strains are sud- 
denly drowned in a terrible war-cry that comes up from the angry throat of 
the Mexican press. " The Combate," of the city of Mexico, a paper which 
is said by the San Antonio (Texas) " Express " to be " the leading journal, — 
' The New- York Herald ' of Mexico, so to speak," — strikes the United States 
in the teeth with its iron gantlet, and dares the " Gringos " to the field. The 
Yankees, we are told, are below the resentment, even below the contempt, 
of the descendants of Cortez, Montezuma, and Hidalgo : nevertheless the 
high-blooded dons must " teach these Gringo dogs good manners." Hereto- 
fore magnanimity has been shown to the *' mongrel race of Yankees, Niggers, 
Dutch, and like cajiaille^ that, for twenty-five years, have cowered before 
Mexico ; " but now they must be whipped into submission. 

"' It is to be hoped that our mild and amiable government will awake to 
the peril of the situation. We. must certainly defend the nation from Mexi- 
can invasion and conquest. We don't want Mexico : we should be sorry 
to have it at any price. The thought of being compelled to take a country 
in which papers hke " The Combate " are published is of itself alarming, to 
say nothing of the Greasers and the national vermin. But poor Gringo 



A REVOLUTIONARY EDITOR. 565 

must at least strike a blow for his national autonomy, even against the war- 
like descendants of Cortez, Montezuma, and Hidalgo.' 

" Next day, and for several succeeding days, there appeared 
letters in 'The New- York Herald,' signed 'Many Mexicans,* 
' Fair Play,' ' Libertad,' etc., all trying to smooth the thing 
over, and to prove that the editor of ' The Combate ' was known 
to them to be nothing but a revolutionary lunatic. The follow- 
ing is a sample of them : — 

CHARACTER OF "EL COMBATE."— A REVOLUTIONARY EDITOR. 

The following letter is from the editor and proprietor of two journals 
published in the city of Mexico : — 

New York, Jan. 8, 1878. 

To the editor of the Herald. 

Although my several weeks' visit to this country is of an entirely private 
nature, and I wish to abstain from any interference in the political matters 
of the country in which I have taken my abode for some years past, I can 
still not allow to pass some statements which appeared in yesterday's 
" Herald " unnoticed. 

In a correspondence from San Antonio, you cite a translation of an article 
published by "The Combate," — a newspaper which sees its light in the 
capital of the Mexican Republic, and which you honor so extremely by call- 
ing it " The New- York Herald of Mexico ; " viz., the foremost representative 
of the Mexican press. As the article above mentioned bears throughout an 
odious character against the United States and its citizens, I bee to state 
that " The Combate " occupies the most inferior place of the numerous politi- 
cal newspapers published in the city of Mexico, and is, under no considera- 
tion, entitled to the honor you so generously confer upon it. The editor of 
"The Combate," Senor Don Manuel Rivera Cambas, is one of that class 
of revolutionists who actually consider permanent revolution their profession. 
The jion-fulfilment of his ambitious desire to a high post in the administra- 
tion has led him, like so many other partisans, into the file of opposition 
against Gen. Diaz, for whom he only a year ago professed the warmest 
friendship, and avowed untiring devotion. 

Permit me, in concluding these lines, to assure you that " The New- York 
Herald" is more widely circulated, read, and cited, in the Republic of 
Mexico, than " The Combate." 

Thanking you most kindly for the space accorded in your paper for this 
statement. I have the honor to remain your most obedient servant, 

Maurice Rahden. 

" Senor Ornales, the Mexican consul at San Antonio, came to 
the ' Daily Express ' office, and, with sorrow and chagrin de- 



566 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

picted on his every feature, said to the editor, * I am much 
grief to learn that ze press of Mexico is in ze hands of ze boys. 
It did not was formerly so, but "El Combate " was not represent 
ze Mexican people.' 

" The thing had created more excitement than I had anti- 
cipated. Several of the leading papers commented on it 
The following letter appeared in * The New-York Herald ' of the 
1 2th of January, 1878: — 

RECENT MEXICAN BLUSTER — WHAT THE CONFIDENTIAL AGENT OF THE 
MEXICAN GOVERNMENT HAS TO SAY ON THE THREATS OF 'EL COMBATE." 

We have received the following communication from Senor Al de 
Zamacona, confidential agent at Washington of the Mexican Govern- 
ment, on the subject of the recently published transaction of a bluster- 
ing anti- American article from " El Combate " of Mexico : — 

^ .7. J-. r *i u 7^ Washington, D.C , Jan. 9, 1878 

10 the editor of the Herald. 

I find in yesterday's " Herald " an article taken from the San-Antonio 
" Express," said to be a translation of another article published in a Mexi- 
can paper, commenting in absurd terms on the recent disturbances at San 
Elizario. Motives sufficient to produce a moral certitude lead me to believe 
that such an article has never come to light in any of the Mexican papers. I 
intend to write on the subject to Mexico by the next steamer, and expect 
to get proof confirming my opinion. If you, Mr. Editor, would take the 
trouble to instruct your correspondent at San Antonio to inquire into the 
matter, I dare to say that he will never be able to find the authentic article 
of which the gross fanfaronade published in the " Express" purports to be 
a translation. 

Even the appearance of truth has been so much disregarded in the so- 
called Mexican article, that I should have abstained from contradicting it in 
any way, had it not received the honor of an editorial comment in your 
popular paper. The so-called translation should have no importance 
beyond establishing these two facts, — first, that there is a persistent and 
systematic work to poison the sentiments of the American people in regard 
to Mexico ; and, second, that those who have undertaken such an ungrateful 
task are not very scrupulous in the selection of their means. 

Should you feel inclined to share this opinion by longer reflection" upon 
the article in question, or by further inquiries about its authenticity, you 
would do a great service to the common interests of our two republics by 
contributing to defeat the scheme which seems to me very apparent at the 
bottom of this incident. I remain yours respectfully, 

M. DE Zamacona, 
Conjidential Agent of the Mexican Goi'ernment 



THE REPORTER INTERVIEWS HIMSELF. 



,67 



"At that time I was a correspondent of 'The New-York 
Herald,' — described hangings, and wrote letters about border 
outrages for them. The same day on which the above letter 
appeared, I received a despatch from * The New- York Herald,* 
instructing me to interview the translator of * The Combate ' 
article, and report as to its authenticity. Here I was in a fix. 
I was the guilty party who concocted the translation. I had 
to interview myself. I was a bashful young man then, and I 
almost shrank from the task. I did not like to force myself on 
any one. I did not know but that when I came to interview 
myself I might refuse to an- 
swer the questions asked, and 
I hated to run the chance of 
being snubbed. However, it 
had to be done. I did not 
know much about the art of 
interviewing them, but I 
knew how to begin. Said I 
(to myself), 'Won't you come 
over to George's with me, and 
take something } ' 

** We went over. I said to 
George Hoerner, ' Geor_2;e, 

can we go into the back room ? I want some place where I 
can talk to this gentleman privately.' 

" 'Vat schentleman ? ' said George. ' I don't see no schentle- 
mans.' 

** I was about to use some very strong language to George 
for making such an insulting remark ; but, remembering that I 
already owed him two dollars and a half, I merely said, ' Send 
in two beers ; ' and I walked back, and took a seat in the rear 
room. I took out my note-book, and went to work ; but it was 
a very unsatisfactory interview. We conversed for two hours, 
and every few minutes I ordered 'two more beers.' I did not 
feel well enough to write to ' The Herald ' that night ; but next 
day I made my report. Let me see : yes, here's a copy of it. 
It was never published : " — 




THE REPORTER INTERVIEWS HIMSELF. 



568 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

San Antonio, Jan. 13, 1878. 

Editors "Herald," — Yesterday evening, after a prolonged search, I 
discovered the person who translated the editorial from " The Combate." 
I found him a very genial gentleman. We spent a pleasant, not to say 
convivial time together ; but although he talked in a very entertaining 
way on various subjects, and showed by his conversation that he pos- 
sessed a vast fund of information on matters connected with our Mexican 
relations, I failed to elicit satisfactory repHes to my questions. His 
answers were evasive and peculiar. The following is a report of that 
part of the interview relating to "The Combate " article : — 

Reporter. — It has been said, colonel, that you translated the 
" Gringo " article, lately published in the " Express." 

Colonel. — Yes, I have heard it intimated. What do you think of 
the new scheme to widen the Alazan ditch ? 

Reporter. — It has been rumored that the translation is not a transla- 
tion, but a fabrication. 

Colonel. — The history of literature tells of several such cases, — 
the poems of Ossian, for instance. I believe I like this better than Mil- 
waukee beer. One feels better after drinking a large quantity of it. 

Reporter. — It would have been a good joke on the public, colonel, 
if that article had really never appeared in "The Combate," but had 
been manufactured here in San Antonio. 

Colonel. — Yes, a good joke — would have been a very good joke, 
indeed. Queer thing, isn't it, that a barber has never been known to 
cut a customer's throat ? 

I could not confine him to the subject, and in the interview elicited 
nothing of importance bearing on it. 

" I do not seem to understand," said the doctor. " Haven't 
you got the papers mixed somehow ? " 

" Oh, no ! " replied the reporter. " As the writer of the 
alleged 'Combate' article, I did not want to acknowledge any 
thing; and, as the representative of 'The New-York Herald,' 
I wanted to learn all the particulars. The two positions were 
antagonistic : therefore the interview was a failure," 

"It was truly a smgiilar interview," said the doctor. 

And we thought that was a very smart thing for the doctor 
to say. 



ILLITERATE OFFICERS. 



5^9 



CHAPTER XLL 




I Mexican officer of to- 
^^' day may be better edu- 
cated than the officer 
of a hundred years 
a^o, but there has 
been no improvement 
in the rank and file 
of the Mexican army 
during the last cen- 
tury. The majority 
of the officers now 
in the Mexican 
army are educated 
men ; but most of 
the officers of the 
Spanish army in Texas, in 
the beginning of the pres- 
ent century, could not even 
write their names. Such 
crimes as forging vouchers, 
and writing windy articles 
in the magazines, crimes so common 
in our army, must have been almost 
unknown in the Spanish army. The 
old archives show, that, when the officers of the garrison at San 
Antonio had occasion to sign their names, most of them made 
their marks. What model jurymen in murder cases they must 
have been ! 



570 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

In 1738 the officers of the presidio of San Antonio addressed 
a petition to the viceroy of New Spain, asking him to assist 
them in building a new church. One who was not acquainted 
with the Spanish character might suppose that the officers 
would have first petitioned for a schoolhouse, or at least a 
slate-pencil. They were very much like the boy who told his 
father not to suffer any anxiety about providing him with shoes 
during the winter, as he could manage to worry along without 
them ; but he really needed, and was obliged to have, a finger- 
ring. So the Spanish officer, in 1738, thought he was obliged 
to have a cathedral. A lieutenant, who was as unlettered as 
an empty mail-bag, sometimes had such an ample name, that, if 
he had it all printed on one visiting-card, he would have to 
double the pasteboard up to get it through a doorway. For 
instance : there was Don Juan Ignacio Rodriguez Francisco 
Garcia Antonio Villareal Castaneda, so it is written ; but, as it 
is the last name in the document alluded to, it may only have 
been a section of his name, and perhaps they had not room to 
finish it. He bore rank as a lieutenant, and made his mark ; 
the name being evidently written by a clerk, to whom it was 
probably let out by contract. Perhaps, however, the illiteracy 
of the officers was not altogether in the nature of a misfortune; 
for that dreadful disease so common in our army, and known as 
red tape, was unknown in the Spanish army. When a Spanish 
soldier lost a button from his uniform, the officers did not 
appoint a board of survey to hold two sessions a day for a week, 
and have the finding of the board, indorsed by all the officers, 
from the generalissimo down, printed, and laid before Congress, 
and finally submitted to a committee on buttons and straps, 
with power to refer the matter to the president, before it could 
be ascertained to whose account the value of the missing button 
was to be charged. In the Spanish army, instead of all this 
formality,, the captain called the soldier several pet names, 
knocked his cap over his eyes, and kicked him a few times. 
Then the soldier fastened up his c6at with a nail, and there the 
official proceedings ended. On account of this prompt way of 
settling matters, and the aversion of the authorities to writing- 
long official documents, the records of the military movements 



MEXICAN VOUCHERS. 



571 



in Texas, to be found in the Mexican archives, are very incom- 
plete. In one particular the army officers had a simple and 
ingenious way of keeping a record of the prisoners intrusted 
to them for safe keeping. When important prisoners were 
consigned to them for transfer to distant prisons, the officers 
were held responsible for the custody 
of these prisoners, and severe penalties 
exacted if they allowed any to escape. 
They were required to produce either 
the prisoners, or satisfactory evidence 
of their death. The authorities seem 
to have considered the prisoners' ears 
" satisfactory evidence ; " for we read 
in the diary of Lieut. M. Muzquiz, who 
was sent by the commanding general, 
Pedro Nava, to capture Philip Nolan 
and party, — 

March i, 1801. 

Nolan's negroes asked permission to bury 
their master ; which I granted, after causing 
his ears to be cut off, in order to send them, 
with other vouchers, to the governor. 

Imagine the governor's private secre- 
tary filing away the ears among the 
state archives ! When the survivors 
of the Santa Fe expedition, captured 
by the Mexicans, under Gov. Arnijo, in 
1 841, were marched from Santa Fe to 
the city of Mexico, the mortuary report 
furnished by the officer in charge, on 
his arrival in the city of Mexico, was 

not elaborate in the matter of details. Neither cause of death, 
age, nor place of nativity, was given. The ''vouchers" repre- 
senting the deceased were strung on a strip of rawhide. 

At the first glance one would suppose that the production of 
a man's ears would be pretty satisfactory evidence that the 
man was dead, but this was not always the case. There is a 
well-authenticated case of a Spanish officer, Lieut. Jose Maria 




MEXICAN VOUCHERS. 



572 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Vidal, who was intrusted with the transportation of some state 
prisoners from San Antonio to Monterey. Among them was a 
Spanish officer of rank, who well knew that his arrival in Mon- 
terey would be followed by a funeral in his family, of which he 
was the only surviving member. Having money at his dis- 
posal, he succeeded in tempting the officer in charge to connive 
at his escape. How he could manage to let the distinguished 
prisoner off, and yet be able to produce the vouchers, was what 
troubled the officer. Fortunately they met a solitary traveller 
on the road. The officer and the distinguished prisoner con- 
ferred together : and the result of the conference was, that next 
morning both the stranger and the distinguished prisoner were 
missing ; but the officer had his vouchers all correct on the 
rawhide string. On arriving at Monterey, he turned over the 
surviving prisoners, and the ears of those who had died on 
the way. The fraud was not suspected, but afterwards the 
supposed-to-be-dead prisoner was seen and recognized. Lieut. 
Vidal was arrested at San Antonio, and was ordered to Mon- 
terey for trial. He attempted to bribe the officer who had him 
in charge to play the same old trick that he had played ; but the 
officer refused, not because he was too honest to accept a bribe, 
but because he did not expect that they would meet with any 
traveller who possessed ears the size and color of those of 
Vidal, and the authorities had begun to be very particular about 
examining the vouchers. Vidal, knowing that it was a desper- 
ate case, cut off his own ears. This satisfied the officer, who, 
when he arrived at Monterey, reported Vidal dead, and handed 
in his ears, which were recognized on account of their size. 

Although the young officers could not write much, the old 
generals could usually write their names, or something that 
represented names. 

When a person of even more than ordinary intelligence ex- 
amines, for the first time, the signatures attached to some of 
the old Spanish archives at San Antonio, he is very much 
puzzled. Each signature is accompanied by an elaborate and 
complicated flourish that is utterly unlike any thing that he has 
ever seen before, and which is more in the nature of a Chinese 
puzzle than any thing else. 



THE SPANISH OFFICIAL, ^ 573 

• 
One might suppose that the Spanish official of a century 

ago was never allowed to sign his name, except when he was 
suffering from delirium tremens. Another explanation for the 
Spanish official using so much time and writing-material is, 
that both were paid for by the government, and hence it was a 
matter of indifference to him how much of them he used. 
Some of the scrawls, or flourishes, look as if it was impossible 
for one man to have made them, unless some other man was 
pounding him on the back while he wrote, or else the writer, 
whenever he was required to sign his name, mounted a buck- 
ing-pony, and wrote his name while the animal was trying to 
stand on its head. The official's name was written without any 
care whatever; but the complicated flourish, or scrawl, was 
probably intended to be the proof of the genuineness of the 
signature, for it was almost impossible for anybody else to 
write it. A mere glance at the flourish was sufficient for iden- 
tification to most of the Mexicans, to whom writing was one of 
the lost arts. 

I have before me an ancient archive, the royal decree chan- 
ging the status and name of the town of Fernando to a city, 
under the present name, San Antonio, and making it military 
headquarters. The document bears date of Nov. i8, 1811, and 
is adorned with the historic signatures of Salcedo, Herrera, 
Bracho, Veramendi, and Zambramo. The body of the docu- 
ment, which is on coarse but serviceable paper, is written in a 
remarkably clear and even style of penmanship ; and it bears 
the stamp of Carlos IV., king of Spain. 

Gov. Salcedo, whose head, stuck on a pole, subsequently 
adorned the Mihtary Plaza of San Antonio, has the most 
modest signature of the lot, as will be seen by a glance at 
the accompanying facsimile of a part of the decree above re- 
ferred to. 

Don Vicinte Travieso appears to have taken great pains in 
writing his name. If the affairs of Spain were as complicated 
as the signature of Don Travieso, it is no wonder that Spain 
lost her American possessions. If Travieso wrote in that way 
when he was sober, I would like to see what his signature was 
like when he was otherwise. 



574 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 




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576 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

Francisco Veramendi, whose daughter, Ursula, married James 
Bowie, who fell in the Alamo, also wrote with a grand flourish. 
If his affairs were as flourishing as his signature seems to 
indicate, he must have been in clover when he signed his name. 

" Let us have some more of your military experience," said 
the doctor to the reporter one evening, as we lay in camp, rest- 
ing from the fatigue of a very hearty supper of canned beef, 
biscuit, and straight coffee. 

" If you really want to hear it, I can narrate some really 
thrilling military adventures that I have been engaged in." 

" Go on," said the doctor ; " but we hope you will not recount 
such another bloody battle as that of Norris's Bridge." 

" From my earliest years," said the reporter, ** I possessed 
an aggressive disposition. I was renowned for deeds of prowess 
at a very tender age. When I was nine years old I met the 
Mexican foe for the first time in deadly conflict. Between 
the Mexican boys, on the west bank of the San Pedro Creek, 
and the American boys, on the east side, there was war all the 
time. I was a San Antonio schoolboy then. The schoolhouse 
was a small adobe building on Commerce Street. It has long 
since disappeared, and a row of fine Stores now occupies the 
site of the old schoolhouse and grounds. During recess it was 
the custom of us overworked youths to repair to the shady 
groves that skirted the flowery banks of the classic San Anto- 
nio River to seek relaxation, and rest our weary brains. The 
relaxation consisted, for the most part, in bombarding with 
slings the residences of the peaceable citizens on the opposite 
bank. The rest of the time was completely taken up in carry- 
ing on an artillery duel with the seekers after knowledge who 
attended an opposition free school, also on the opposite bank 
of the classic stream. The San Antonio boy of that period 
was much more vivacious than his successors of the present 
day. He lived in a chronic state of warfare with the Mexican 
boys, the police, and other public enemies. The boy of the 
present day uses a * nigger-shooter ' in making himself an object 
of veneration to everybody who lives within range. The boy 
who made life and property unsafe in 1857 would have scorned 
such a plaything. His toy was the sling, — not the kind of 



THE REPORTER IN ARMS AGAIN. 577 

sling that men get slewed with, but a weapon identical with 
the one with which David made such an impression on Goliath. 
It had long strings, and could create ruin and desolation over 
a circle of a quarter of a mile, taking the boy motor as the 
centre point. It carried a projectile about the size of a bottle 
of mucilage. After five or six skilled performers had serenaded 
a house for a few minutes, it was customary for the owner to 
have it reshingled. Those boys were the friends of the work- 
ingmen. 

'* It was at recess, about the middle of a very warm day ; but 
the climate had no depressing effect on the boy with a sling. 
Instigated, no doubt, by the Devil, one of the boys suggested 
that the residence of Mr. Schleicher, on the bluff bank of the 
creek, was within easy range. Another one of the gentle lads, 
whose name modesty prevents me from parading before the 
public, prepared a sling, and, merely out of curiosity to see if 
the building was within range, propelled a bowlder in that 
direction. A servant-girl was carrying the soup for dinner 
across the yard, when the missile bounded over her head, and 
passed on into the house, through a window that some careless 
person had forgotten to open. The soup was dropped in a 
hurry, and the frightened female fled into the interior of the 
castle. 

''In a few minutes a large, portly gentleman, in his shirt- 
sleeves, and armed with a palm-leaf fan, appeared on the 
opposite bluff. He made a few appropriate remarks somewhat 
tinged with bitterness and invective. He called his hearers 
'young vagabonds.' He made a most impassioned appeal, and 
promised to cultivate closer relations if we gave him any 
further opportunity. 

"Now, the prejudice against Germans existed even at that 
time. The speaker was continually interrupted by remarks 
from the audience, which reflected somewhat on the nationality 
of the orator, and on his physical peculiarities. But the San 
Antonio boy of that period was never idle. A messenger had 
been sent hurriedly to procure ammunition. As soon as it 
arrived, those boys with overworked brains settled down to 
steady work. Shingles flew from the roof, branches of trees 



578 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

were cut off, and, having at last got the range of the speaker, 
he withdrew. 

•'There was delirious joy at the defeat of the German. But 
the exultation was premature ; for in a few minutes Mr. 
Schleicher came out again, with a pistol in his hand. This 
was a feature of the programme about which we had not been 
consulted. He raised the pistol, and deliberately fired across 
the river toward us. I have no idea that he fired with the inten- 
tion of hitting anybody ; but the besieging army was harassed 
with doubts on that subject, and fell back behind a stone wall, 
very much shocked at the utter disregard of law displayed by 
the corpulent foreigner. Just then the bell rang to warn the 
recuperated youths to resume their studies. They returned to 
the schoolhouse in a pensive mood. As if by inspiration, it 
occurred to me that the enemy might make a flank movement 
over Commerce-street Bridge, and disturb us in our studies. 
It was a singular coincidence, that it flashed simultaneously 
over my memory that I had been earnestly requested to come 
home at recess, and that there was no time to lose, as Schleicher 
might put in an appearance at any minute. Just as I got out- 
side of the gate, his tall form loomed up on the bridge. The 
subsequent proceedings are described by an e3^e-witness as 
being particularly interesting. Schleicher made a speech to 
me. He depicted in glowing terms the necessity of frontier 
protection against savage tribes of schoolboys, and intimated 
that his policy in the future would be to cross over, pursue the 
banditti to their hiding-places, and chastise them severely ; 
also that he would hold the Mexican Government (the school- 
teacher) responsible for any further outrages. The speech 
created a profound impression. From that time on, the 
Schleicher mansion was neglected in the diurnal target- 
practice." 

" You must have mistaken our meaning when we asked you 
for a narration of some of your military experience," said the 
doctor. *'If you ever saw any real hard service, let us hear 
from you." 

" Hard service ! " said the reporter with a sneer: ''I should 
think so. I belonged to the Alamo Rifles some years ago. 



REAL HARD SERVICES. 



579 



Those were the days, too, that tried men's souls ; for we had to 
run to fires, and guard property. It warms an old veteran's 
heart to fight his battles o'er again. Here goes. Let the 
women and children, and all other non-combatants, be removed 
ten miles to the rear. This battery is about to open fire. 

" In the first place, allow me to straighten out a little point 
in the history of the world. Shortly after I had ceased to 
assist Mr. Jefferson Davis in destroying the government, not 
having had enough of war, I joined the Alamo Rifles. We 
used to keep the people awake with a drum and fife, drilling in 
a large room in the rear of the Vance House. After we had 
used that locality for some time, we moved our armory to 
another part of the city. Some civilian (no doubt, some fellow 
who did not love the tented field and its dangers) put a low, 
scurrilous item in 'The San-Antonio Herald,' to the effect 
that the Alamo Rifles had changed their armory because there 
was a biting-dog near the place in which they used to drill. 
Other non-military men added to this vile slander the state- 
ment, that, in our new armory, we paid ten dollars more rent 
because there was no biting-dog within one hundred yards of 
our rendezvous. This went the rounds, and is going to become 
a part of the military history of the country, unless it is cor- 
rected now, while there are a few surviving old warriors by 
whom the truth can be established. 

'' Our reason for changing the location of our armory was an 
entirely different one. Let the truth of history be vindicated. 
We made the change because there was not a saloon within a 
quarter of a mile where we could get credit, and we did not 
care to march half a mile for a glass of beer. Underneath our 
new armory there was a beer-saloon, and the proprietor could 
take the rent out of what we owed him for the beer. That 
changing of the armory was a necessity, a strategic move, that 
showed military genius of the loftiest order. 

"When I sometimes muse over the hardships we had to 
undergo, and then read what an easy time soldiers have of it 
nowadays, it makes me smile the pensivest kind of a smile. 

"The campaign of 1872 will long be remembered by the old 
veterans of the Alamo Rifles. It seemed to me that we had 



58o ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

to double-quick away out into the suburbs of the town, to see 
that nobody but the owner carried off a burning haystack, or a 
chimney on fire, about once every few weeks, and usually at 
two o'clock in the morning. Occasionally we would have the 
luck to be called out in the middle of the day. It was our 
duty to scare anybody, if only the small boy who tried to burst 
the hose by standing on it without the countersign from the 
brigadier-general in command. Those were stirring times. It 
stirs the blood of age just to think of them. 

" I am told that a proposition has been made to build a 
monument to the heroes of the Alamo. As soon as enough 
assets have flowed into the coffers of the memorial association 
from the patriotic citizens, I am going to engage an artist to 
get up a design for the monument. Some old fogies will want 
statues of Travis and Crockett cheering on their men, but my 
idea is much better. I am going to have the figure on the 
monument represent an Alamo riflist in full uniform : in fact, 
I am going to have a whole group commemorative of a thrilling 
incident of the campaign of 1872. In the month of July there 
was an immense conflagration of a Mexican jacal on the west 
side of the San Pedro. Among the articles rescued from the 
burning summer-palace of the Aztec was a broken-legged chair, 
and a cheap picture of St. Anthony, etc. These precious relics 
were carried out into the street, and an Alamo riflist, with glit- 
tering bayonet, put on guard over them, to prevent anybody 
from carrying them off. In a few minutes the steam fire- 
engine had washed the burning shanty out of existence, and 
had formed a large lake on its site. The proprietress of the 
picture and crippled chair, an aged Mexican of ninety-nine 
summers, wanted to take off her chattels ; but the Alamo riflist 
refused to obey any order that did not come from his superior 
officer, who had taken a furlough in a neighboring saloon, where 
the firemen were celebrating their victory over the fire-fiend. 
The old Mexican woman, not being well posted about military 
jurisprudence, attempted to rescue her property ; but the stern 
sentinel kept her at bay with his bayonet. The mayor of the 
city, and several other influential men, begged him on their 
knees to relax his discipline, so that the old woman could get 



GRIM-VISAGED WAR. 



581 



her property ; but all the answer he made was to polish his 
bayonet on his sleeve, hinting thereby that he was getting 
ready to introduce it into somebody. Now, my idea is, to have 
the statue on the proposed Alamo monument represent the 
Alamo riflist, with one foot on the chair, his bayonet levelled 




'f^///«**^>^44>4?Fr 



A SUGGESTION. 



at the breast of the hireling Mexican foe, who begs for mercy 
and the other things. 

" A great many of our citizens were not partial to the Alamo 
Rifles. The idea of their being present at' fires was displeasing 
to some of our merchants, who hinted that the only thing that 
kept the company together was the hope of being called to 
stand guard over the contents of liquor and cigar stores ; and 
some said that the company was the cause of the high rates 
charged by insurance companies. The Alamo Rifles applied 
to the city council for thirty dollars a month alimony. The 



582 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

owner of the armory was beginning to be unpleasant about 
back rent. The city council said they could not conscien- 
tiously vote us the money. Just about this time a grocery- 
store on the Alamo Plaza did actually catch fire. As if by 
magic, the whole neighborhood glistened with bayonets and 
uniforms. Hundreds of boxes of cigars, whiskey by the barrel, 
and all kinds of liquors, were carried across the street to a 
vacant lot. The riflists formed a Macedonian phalanx of glit- 
tering steel around these provisions, and a battery of artillery 
at close range would not have impressed them. The owner of 
the goods started the rumor that there were two thousand 
pounds of blasting-powder in the cellar; but the boys saw 
through it, and kept on lighting twenty-cent cigars, and sam- 
pling a high-priced article of whiskey. Unfortunately my posi- 
tion was in a bed of large red ants. As it was night, there was 
not sufficient light for me to find this out sooner than I did ; 
and, as it was summer, I *was not burdened with underwear. 
The ants found this out : so did I. They accompanied me all 
the way, so to speak ; for I retired in good but rapid order to 
my home, where I removed about twenty-five of the enemy 
with a pair of old bullet-moulds. I had seen as much of grim- 
visaged war as was good for my health. I resigned, but I 
couldn't use my legs fluently for several days. There was 
some talk of trying me by court-martial, and having me shot, 
for having left the whiskey and cigars without orders ; but some 
of the staff-officers had been near that same ant-bed, and had 
to be taken home in wheelbarrows : hence I was not shot. But 
I might have been. 

" There it is again ! When an old soldier gets to telling 
about his battles and sufferings, there is no stopping him." 

The reporter gave us many other leaves from his biography. 
His war experience lulled us to sleep every night for a month. 
After supper, when we would be encamped in some sheltered 
spot, and when, tired and sleepy, we would stretch ourselves on 
our buffalo robes, the conversation usually turned on war ; and 
then the reporter was sure to start a recital of one of his many 
bloody engagements, and in a few moments we were asleep, 
and dreaming of carnage. 



LUXURY OF SLEEP.— WILD HORSES, 583 

The luxury of these sleeps in the open air I shall never 
forget. " Sleep makes us all pachas," gs the Eastern proverb 
runs ; but only those who have slept out of doors in Western 
Texas can understand the full meaning of the proverb. When 
going to sleep on the prairie, you are not distressed by thoughts 
of to-morrow. Therein lies the luxury and pleasure of a buffalo- 
robe couch, away from the corroding cares and harassing re- 
straint of an effete civilization. As you lie down, and turn your 
gaze on the star-spangled firmament above, you are not dis- 
tressed by the thought of having to get up early, that you may 
have time to get shaved before going to the office. No milk- 
man, with a sleep-destroying bell, wakes you up at an early- 
worm hour in the morning ; and at no season of the year, as 
you go to sleep with your feet to the camp-fire, does the 
thought that to-morrow will be the first of the month trouble 
you. You are unmoved by those things regarding which the 
rest of the terraefilial race worry and fuss and fret themselves. 

One morning about daybreak, as we lay in camp on the 
bank of a creek, we observed a herd of about twenty horses, 
led by a magnificent black stallion, come down the opposite 
bank, and go into the water to drink. There would not have 
been to us any thing remarkable in this circumstance, had we 
not noticed, as the horses played around in the water, that 
none of them was branded. They were wild horses, — the first 
we had ever seen. A noise made by the doctor startled them. 
The leader gave a snort of alarm ; and in a moment all the 
horses in the herd stood in line, with their heads towards us. 
For a second they stood*'still ; then, apparently in obedience to 
orders given by their leader, they dashed up the steep bank, 
the black stallion taking position in the rear. There are very 
few wild horses in Texas now, but some men still continue to 
make a living by hunting and capturing them. 

I have met old men who told me, that, when Americans first 
began to settle in Texas, immense herds of wild horses were 
to be found all over the western portion of the State. Com- 
panies of men were organized to hunt the horses. These men 
were called mustangers. They drove the horses into strongly 
built pens. Another mode of capturing them was called 



584 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

"walking them down." The hunters followed them for several 
days, driving them in a circle, and giving them no time to eat, 
drink, or rest. The result of this was, that the horses thus 
pursued became so fatigued that they were finally lassoed with 
comparative ease. To accomplish this, the hunters changed 
horses at points where, by previous arrangements, their com- 
panions had fresh saddle-horses in waiting. Juan Gonzales, a 
Mexican, near Fort Concho, Tex., is said to be the champion 
lassoer of the world. He throws a lasso two hundred and 
twenty-five feet in length with the precision of a skilled marks- 
man firing a rifle-ball. 

The buffalo is also becoming scarce in Texas. Forty years 
ago the plains were covered with them. In the spring they 
went North, returning to Texas with the first signs of winter. 
Stockmen, with their herds of cattle, have driven them farther 
west every year. Millions of them have been killed for their 
skins, the carcasses being left to the buzzards. A man named 
Long, of Fort Griffin, is said to have killed three thousand buf- 
falo in one winter ; and Big Jim White, a professional buffalo- 
hunter, killed eight hundred in one month. Those who hunt 
the buffalo for the hide go in parties. Each member of the 
party has special duties. Some drive the wagons, some cook, 
others skin the slain animals ; and the best marksmen have 
nothing to do but shoot. 

The killer, as he is called, rides as near to the herd as he 
can without alarming the buffalo. Then he dismounts, and 
creeps to within rifle-shot. He first shoots the leader of the 
herd if possible. If he is successful in killing the leader, the 
others remain until probably forty or fifty of them are killed, 
before the herd stampedes. 

It is a shame that Congress does not enact a law prohibit- 
ing this wholesale slaughter of a useful and valuable animal. 
The day is not far distant when the American bison will be 
extinct. The buffalo, and his fellow-nomad the Indian, must 
inevitably make way for the advancing hosts of white men 
who are steadily and irresistibly moving westward. 

We left the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, and turned our 
faces north-east. For ten days we rode through a country 




THROWING THE LASSO. 



THE MEXICAN PASTOR, 585 

that is very sparsely settled. Only an occasional sheep-camp 
or cattle-ranch indicated that we were in an inhabited country. 
Through the Mexican town of Dolores, past Fort Clark, over 
the Las Moras hills, through canyons, into mesquite chaparrals, 
and over high plateaus, we wended our way northward at the 
rate of about thirty miles a day. There were days, that, beyond 
those of our own party, we did not see a human face. We 
were delighted beyond measure when we met any one ; and we 
would stop and squander half a day, enjoying the most common- 
place conversation with the stranger. 

I remember one poor, ignorant Mexican pastor (shepherd) 
who must have thought we were mad. We met him after hav- 
ing been two days without seeing a stranger. When I saw him 
riding along, I was delighted. I said to myself, *' Now, I'll 
enjoy a talk with this man ; for he is, no doubt, a simple, 
honest stockman, and will not hurl puns at me, as the doctor 
does, nor give his war experiences after the manner of the 
reporter." As I approached him, I saw he was a Mexican. I 
shook hands with him in a very cordial manner; and I said, 
^''Buenos dias.'' That was all of the Mexican language I knew 
•then. * 

He, replying in a quiet and conciliatory tone of voice, said, 
**Doggonit." That was all of the English he knew. He said it 
as if he were proud of knowing so much of our beautiful and 
expressive language. 

We stood and talked, bowed, smiled, and gesticulated for 
an hour, the Mexican doing the same. He did not understand 
a word of what we said ; and we did not understand what he 
said, except the words above quoted, which he repeated several 
times, being apparently possessed with the idea, that, if there 
was any more of the English language, it could only be some 
auxiliary terms not necessary to the carrying-on of a friendly 
conversation. 

No matter how ignorant or commonplace the people were 
whom we met, we were glad of their society. They were not 
all, by any means, either ignorant or commonplace. 

It is wonderful how many educated men, and men of rare 
tale'nts and attainments, are to be met in sheep-camps and 



586 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

cattle-ranches on the plains of Western Texas. Love of adven- 
ture, pursuit of health, and poverty hand in hand with pride, 
are some of the causes that bring these men to the ends of the 
earth. I have seen an ex-student of Oxford University butch- 
ering a sheep in the Nueces valley. I met the son of a member 
of the British Parliament driving a team in Uvalde County. 
I know a man, now living in a tent, and herding five hundred 
sheep on the prairie, who ten years ago was editor of a 
prominent Parisian newspaper, and one of the popular society 
men of the gayest capital in Europe. Digging around the roots 
of his grape-vines in Kendall County, a certain German baron 
finds more satisfaction and profit than he could in the land of 
his fathers. 

The following incident will illustrate the facts stated above : — 
When we were in Fort Clark we met a tramp. He was 
about thirty years of age. He wore shoes down at the heel 
and broken on the sides. His hair was long, and bore traces 
of recent contact with a haystack. His clothes were seedy, 
and he smelled like a livery-stable. He differed but little from 
the ordinary tramp who spends his leisure in walking from town 
to town, in resting his shoulders against corners, ana in lying 
on his back by the roadside, smoking a short clay pipe. I 
would have passed him unnoticed, had he not approached me, 
and asked me for means to procure bread and a place of shelter. 
As I stopped to hand him a silver coin, I looked in his face, 
and recognized the wreck of an old friend and school-fellow. I 
had known him fifteen years before. Then he wore fashionable 
clothes, and parted his hair in an equatorial way. We, his con- 
temporaries, used to envy him ; and when, with a twitch of his 
eyebrow, he let his eyeglass drop to the end of the cord that 
held it, and, referring to an acquaintance, said, " Cawn't expect 
a fellow to know such a cad as that, you know ; can't afford it, 
by Jove ! " we were filled with unutterable awe, and looked 
on him as on one inspired. Before we, his equals in age, had 
ceased to take pleasure in marbles, he was staggering, so to 
speak, under the weight of the experience he had gained in the 
playing of countless games of billiards. When we were sip- 
ping our matutinal coffee under the paternal roof, he was 



THE TRAMP. 



587 



bracing up on B. and S. down at the Essex arms. A certain 
boii/iojuie and geniality of disposition, natural to him, made him 
popular with his own set. Young ladies admired him, school- 
girls adored him, and tailors dunned him. Taking him alto- 
gether, he was a young man of great promise, — at least, so 
his creditors said. The wreck of this gay young man was 
before me in the person of the tramp. Evidently he did not 




THE TRAMP. 



recognize me. 



I asked him to walk with me towards the hotel 
that I was stopping at. As we were walking along, he said 
his name was Brown, and he gave me a fictitious history of his 
family and himself. It was pitiful to hear him wind long and 
dismal lies out of himself, — all of them, more or less, excuses 
for his present dilapidated condition. 

Arriving at the hotel, I induced him to sit down on the 
stoop. I told him that he reminded me so much of a friend I 
used to know, and that I thought surely he did not always 



588 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

spell his name '* Brown." He saw that I knew the secret of his 
identity, looked confused for a moment, then, gazing at me 
with intense interest, he recognized me. 

The mixture of tramp and gentleman, of pleasure in recogniz- 
ing an old friend, and of chagrin at being recognized, was a 
study. As I was not a studying man, I shook hands with 
my old friend, and in a few minutes learned his true story. 
As he spoke, there was none of the old affectation of voice 
and intonation. There was a sober earnestness, mixed with 
a shade of sadness, in his voice. He said, — 

** Four years ago I had a row with the governor. I spent a 
great deal of money, as you may remember, and associated with 
a fast set. I was admired and flattered for my wit, smartness, 
and good looks, as I then thought. Now I know my popularity 
was based on the suppers, the drives, the opera-boxes, and other 
good things that my father's money furnished to my friends. 
I thought that I knew a great deal more than my father did. 
I looked on him as an old fogy with a ridiculously exalted idea 
as to the value of money, — very good in his way, and useful 
about the first of the month, but much, very much, behind the 
times. 

" On one occasion I became angry because my father ex- 
postulated with me regarding my extravagance. In my wrath, 
I made the assertion that I could and would be independent of 
his assistance. I sailed for New York, arriving in that haven 
of the world's scapegraces with a few pounds in my pockets. 
I spent all the money I had, before I tried to procure work. I 
had no very definite idea, at the time, of what kind of work 
I was best suited for. I had a rather general idea that I was 
capable of almost any thing, from the running of an iron-clad 
war-ship to the steering of an ox-team, and that, when I would 
condescend to engage in business, I would find quite an amount 
of competition for my services. During the past four years 
I have accumulated a great deal of experience. I have learned 
the value of money. I know that it takes three hours' hard 
work at a wood-pile, and several blisters on my hands, to earn 
a single silver quarter, with some profane compliments thrown 
in because some of the sticks are too long for the dining-room 



THE TRAMP. 



589 



stove. I know that in Texas half a dollar will purchase the 
privilege of sleeping with the old man in the room, with ' Har- 
per's Weekly ' illustrations on the wall, a draught under the 
door, and a hole in the roof, while a quarter will only secure 
the use of a horse-blanket on the back gallery with the dog. 
Yes, I have had a varied experience, — taught a school, drove a 
street-car, been on one coasting-voyage before the mast, painted 
patent-medicine fence-advertisements, was three months with 
the rangers, sang in a minstrel show, taught a class in boxing, 
and filled many other positions more peculiar than lucrative. 
I am one of the blanks in life's lottery. I am too proud to 
acknowledge my failure. Some day I may go home to gladden 
the heart of my good old father; but by that time, perhaps — 
well, I must be moMiing. God bless you, old boy! Good-night." 
I had intended dovetaillnof a moral on to the end of the 
tramp's story. The narrative is painful enough, however, 
without that : so let us diverge. 




590 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XLII. 




ii|d£ NEXT Story was told by the 
Jj \ newspaper -man, whose trials 
and tribulations figure so ex- 
tensively in these pages. 

It was fiX. the beginning of 
the war. His regiment was 
marching through Louisiana 
by forced marches ; for it is a 
solemn matter of fact, that 
the first troops that went 
out from Texas were in very 
much of a hurry, because 
they feared that the war 
would be over before they 
could reach the tented field. 
They were afraid that the Virginians would swindle them out 
of their share of glory in taking Washington. While the 
Northern people were talking about a ninety-days' war, the 
Texans thought it hardly worth while to start out, as the war 
would be over before they could get a chance to strike a blow. 
But to the story, which is best given in the language of the 
newspaper-man himself : — 

"Just before dark one afternoon, we passed a comfortable- 
looking farmhouse, the owner of which was busily engaged, 
with a very anxious expression of countenance and a long pole, 
in driving a number of pigs under the house. The impression 
that forced itself upon us, on observing this conduct, was, that 
he thought the pigs would be safer, and last longer, as far as 
his selfish wants were concerned, under his immediate super- 



A BOGS TORY. 



591 



vision, than in any place where we could get at them. One of 
my comrades, who was trudging along by my side, Bob Beasley, 
— a proud, high-strung, sensitive fellow, but as honest, neverthe- 
less, as the day is long, — was stung to the quick by the action 
of the farmer ; and, turning to me, Bob said, * That is an insult 
to our sacred cause, and to every honest man in the regiment. 
Let us resent it. Let us teach this man to respect us. Let's 
go back there to-night, and steal one of his darned old hogs, 
to show 
him that 
we won't 
stand any 
of his insin- 
uations.' 

** I saw 
that Bob's 
feelings 
were hurt 
by the un- 
generous 
conduct of 
the rustic, 
and en- 
deavored 
to calm 
him down, 

but in vain. His blood was up. I agreed to assist him in 
wiping out the insult, on condition that I should have one-half 
of the pork. We camped a few miles from the house ; and that 
night, although we were very tired, we cheerfully trudged back 
to the house where we had seen the farmer trying to steal the 
pigs from us. We quietly called a council of war, and agreed 
upon a campaign plan. It was thought best not to make any 
unnecessary noise, as it might induce the farmer to come out 
and still further irritate us. All we really wanted was the 
hog. Bob Beasley was to crawl through the hole under the 
house, and drive the hogs out, because he was more familiar 
with the habits of hogs than I was. I was to assume an offen- 




INSINUATIONS. 



592 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



sive position, with a club, at the outside of the hole, and as 
soon as a hog came out I was to stun him with a blow, after 
which he was to be despatched, and carried to camp. Bob 

crawled in on all-fours, and pretty soon 
I heard a hog scrambling toward the 
hole. I drew back my club ; and, just 
as the porker came out through the 
hole, I gave him a tremendous blow. 

BobBeas- 




ley 



gave a 
grunt, for 
he was the 
hog. I had 
only dislo- 
cated his 
shoulder, in- 
stead of 
k n o c k i n g 
h i s brains 
out. The 
farmer, it 
seems, had 
added in- 
sult to 
jury by 



I'VE GOT HIM." 



ni- 
re- 
his 
from 
under the 



hogs 



house. He did not think they were safe even there. 

"Bob expressed himself very forcibly. He used language 
to me which no soldier should use to a comrade. He was 
evidently much disappointed at not finding the hogs under the 
house. In the excitement of the moment I spoke emphatically, 
in a low tone of voice, of what I thought of the conduct of the 
farmer. I had a good notion to inform t±ie colonel of our 
regiment, and have the agriculturist imprisoned as a traitor. I 
should certainly have denounced his treachery ; but I was afraid, 
that, if I said any thing about the affair, our motives for trying 



THE DISTINGUISHED LAWYERS S STORY. 593 

to kill the hog might have been misconstrued. I volunteered 
to carry Bob Beasley to camp on my back, which was only two 
or three miles off. I would not have volunteered if Beasley 
had not given me his solemn word of honor that he would 
assassinate me if I did not carry him cheerfully. When I got 
to camp I had acquired a permanent curvature of the spine, 
which is one of the offerings I cheerfully laid upon the altar of 
my country. Our devotion to principle was not appreciated 
by our comrades', who would jeeringly call out, 'How's your 
hog .? ' whenever we passed along the line. From that hour I 
instinctively felt that the cause of the Confederacy was 
hopeless." 

The distinguished San Antonio lawyer then told his story. 
He, too, had been in the Confederate army during the time 
that the Northern and South- 
ern States suspended cordial 
relations. He said, — 

" I belonged to Col. Duff's 
regiment, the Thirty - third 
Texas cavalry. Our colonel 
was an old United - States 
officer, and by his knowledge 
of military matters, particu- 
larly the manipulation of red 

tape, had managed to obtain 

for us first-class uniforms, 
splendid fire-arms, and the 
ill will of the rest of the ,_.: 
Texas troops. As he kept 
us well drilled, and preserved 
strict discipline, our regiment 
was like one in the reo-ular 

O 

United-States army, and very much in contrast with other 
regiments of the brigade, which were without uniforms or 
disciphne. There was much bad feelmg ni consequence, but 
not on our part. The brigade was ordered into winter quarters, 
in 1863, on Red River, near Lanesport, which has Texas on 
one side, — and is opposite the boundary-line of the Indian 
38 




X 



CARRYING BOB. 



594 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



Territory, — and Arkansaw on the other. Our camp was in 
Arkansaw, in a bend of Red River, about ten miles from Lanes- 
port. One day I was detailed to accompany Col. Duff to Clarks- 
ville, in Texas, and to return with the empty ambulance. We 

proceeded up Red River to the 
ferry at Lanesport, where there 
was a guard from Col. Smith's 
regiment. The guards were a 
hard-looking set of men. No two 
were dressed alike. The only 




CALLING THE ROLL. 



uniform things about them were the long hair that hung around 
their shoulders, and the grease on their tattered clothes. There 
was a company of them stationed at the ferry ; and, just as we 
drove up, they were gathered together around a stump, on top 
of which the captain was standing, calling the roll. We were 



SMOOT, THE EX STAGE-DRIVER. 595 

told, with some pride, by the officer in command, that so rigid 
was the discipline, that very rarely a week passed over without 
the roll being called. We passed over the river, and, after a 
brief drive, reached Clarksville, where we put up at a hotel. 
Next morning Col. Duff proceeded on to San Antonio, and we 
started on our return to camp with the ambulance. By *we,' 
reference is made to the driver and myself. The driver's name 
was Smoot. He was a middle-aged man, adorned with a great 
deal of baldness about the top of his head, to make up for 
which, however, he had an immense yellow beard that covered 
his breast, and seemed to have received its color from mis- 
directed tobacco-juice. He had little twinkling eyes, and was 
a professional stage-driver. 

"After we had enjoyed a really excellent breakfast — some- 
thing with which we had not been familiar for a long time — at 
the hotel in Clarksville, Smoot picked his teeth with great sat- 
isfaction and a large bowie-knife, and remarked that we might 
as well be thinking of sailing out. He also remarked, inciden- 
tally, that the ' spare-ribs * were good. Anybody who had been 
banqueting for several years on the blue beef and sour corn- 
meal of the Confederacy would have been willing, and even 
anxious, to proclaim the excellences of that breakfast from 
the housetops. I remarked that I was prepared to sustain him 
in the position he had taken. 

"As we rode along, Smoot seemed to be turning over some- 
thing in his mind. After a while he spoke out, and proceeded 
to unfold the devilish plot that he had been hatching in his 
mind. Said he, — 

"*You saw all those hogs feeding along the road between 
here and the ferry .? What's to hinder us from killing one, put- 
ting him in the ambulance, and taking him right into camp.? 
The guards at the ferry will never notice it, and we won't call 
their attention to it.' 

"*We maybe caught by the provost-guard, and put in the 
bull-pen. Besides, it ain't right to — to be caught,' said I. 

"'That's so. But- nobody who is not caught is put in the 
bull-pen. It's only them that's caught that's on the inside.' 

" Smoot was as persuasive as he was ungrammatical ; and I 



59^ ON A MElKICAN MUSTANG, 

liked fresh pork so much myself, that I yielded to his wishes, 
and we formed a partnership to go into the pork-trade at once. 
I would have felt much easier in my mind if we could have 
taken in the guard at the ferry as a third partner. Perhaps 
the simplest way to have avoided the whole trouble would have 
been to take the owner of the hog into our confidence, as a 
member of the firm, and to pay for the hog ; but it was not 
customary for soldiers to commit such reckless acts of extrava- 
gance. It is not good to have too many partners in one small pig. 

*' * But suppose the owner of the pig interrupts us ?' 

** ' We won't let him. We will interrupt him if he attempts 
it,' said Smoot. 

" ' But suppose he does, anyhow } ' 

" ' If wuss comes to wussness, we can offer to pay for it in 
Confederate money.' 

"■ ' Suppose he won't take it t ' 

" * Arrest him for trying to depreciate the credit of the Con- 
federacy.' 

" Still I had misgivings. It seemed to me impossible that 
the blessings of Heaven would light upon the enterprise, even 
if we fooled the guard. We noticed some very large fat hogs 
in the suburbs of Clarksville, but Smoot said he preferred 
country hogs. Unlike most stage-drivers and Confederate sol- 
diers, Smoot was distressingly particular about what he ate. 
We passed numerous hogs as we drove along, but they were all 
more or less objectionable. Not being beggars, we could afford 
to be choosers. Some of the hogs were too small, others too 
lean ; some were too far off ; and some that would have suited 
precisely insisted upon remaining as near a house as possible, 
from which I inferred that we were not the first Confederate 
soldiers who had passed along that way. We did not care to 
molest any hog near a house. Our object was to get the pork, 
not to disturb the owner. Thus it happened that we came 
within five or six miles of the ferry without having been guilty 
of any lawlessness whatever. 

" * We have got to kill one now, or not at all, for the provost- 
guard at the ferry has got away with all in that vicinity,' said 
Smoot. 



OPERATIONS IN PORK, 597 

"We passed a comfortable-looking farmhouse, in front of 
which an aged patriarch, leaning on his staff, was engaged in 
feeding his flock of chickens. The old man gave us a suspi- 
cious look as we drove past. After we had gone about two 
hundred yards, we perceived a lot of hogs rooting by the road- 
side. They evidently belonged to the farm we had just passed. 

" ' I reckon we will be compelled to take one of them along. 
They are not fat ; but we haven't got time to stay here until 
they do get fat,' said Smoot. 

"*But the old cuss can't help seeing us from the house.' 

'"Then, let him go inside: nobody's hindering him. I won- 
der if he is a cripple. Somehow, I would have more confidence 
in myself if I knew he couldn't run fast.' 

" ' I tell you, Smoot, we might scare the old man by shooting 
so close to him. The house is too near us.' 

"'It's too late now for us to move it away. — Here, suke, 
suke! ' And he took out an ear of corn, and threw some of the 
grains on the ground, to inspire the hogs with confidence. 
They hastened to the banquet with joyous grunts, and twirled 
their tails with delight. Such kind-hearted men as Smoot, who 
liked hogs, were scarce in that region. The pigs really seemed 
to enjoy the corn as they ran out and in among the wheels of 
the ambulance, and called for an encore. 

" Smoot shaded his eyes, and took a view of the house and 
the patriarch, murmuring, *I wonder how he is off for rheuma- 
tism. If he was only deaf, he needn't be rheumaticky at all. 
An old man like him ought to be deafer than a post.' 

" Smoot drew my revolver from the scabbard, and examined 
it as if he wanted to buy it. 

" ' Now, keep your eye on the old coon, while I have a per- 
sonal difficulty with that speckled shote that is eating up my 
corn.' 

"Bang! 

" Smoot had shot the hog near the eye : but it did not fall 
dead, as was expected ; at least, I inferred not, for never in 
all my life did I hear such direful squeals. The noise was so 
keen and piercing that I had to put my hands on my ears. It 
scared the mules : they wanted to run — and so did I. I thought 



598 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



we were lucky not to have come across a big hog if a little 

speckled shote made all that fuss. 

'• ' Drive on,' I cried : * that hog doesn't want to go along.' 

'** Not .much,' said 
Smoot. * Just jump 
down and cut his 
throat.' 

" The shote, fran- 
t i c with pain, 
charged right upon 
me ; and, purely in 
self-defence, I made 
a pass at it with the 
knife, that nearly cut 
its head off, killing it 
instantly. All this 
was done very quick- 
ly ; but we had neg- 
lected to w^atch the 
old man. We had 
not paid as much 
attention to him as 
he deserved. But 
it seemed that he 
was more attentive 
to us, as strangers, 
than we had any 
reason to expect. 

'' ' Oh, you 

scoundrels! I'll 







ILL TEACH YOU VILLAINS. TO STEAL HOGS!' 



teach you 



villains to steal 
hogs ! ' 

" I looked over my shoulder ; and there was the profane old 
scoundrel within ten yards of us, making astonishing time for 
one so aged. He was too close for us to put the hog into the 
ambulance : so Smoot drove around the curve in the road, and 
I cut through the wood to meet him, being still closely 



PURSUED, 599 

followed by the dead animal. This time, however, I held it by 
the hind-leg. The old man gained on me so rapidly that I felt 
constrained to adopt his suggestion, and 'drop that hog,' which 
I did, jumping into the ambulance with Smoot, and rapidly 
driving away. 

"■ ' Whew ! that must have been a pet pig,' observed Smoot 
dryly. 

" • I hope it won't follow us up any more.* 

"'Why didn't you stop, and offer him ten thousand dollars 
Confederate money t ' said Smoot. 

"We laughed heartily at first about an old man with a stick 
robbing two Confederate soldiers of their rations ; but, some- 
hov/ or other, I was full of misgivings that there was going to 
be a side-show or concert after the principal performance was 
over. I remarked to Smoot, that, if the old fellow kept on after 
us at the rate he was travelling when I last saw him, he was 
probably at the ferry already. We made the mules travel as 
they never travelled before. W^e drove down the steep bank 
of the river into the ferryboat, in which the grim sentinel was 
lying stretched out asleep, with his trusty musket beside him. 
We woke him up, and showed him our passes, which he care- 
fully read — upside down. The boat pushed off, and we began 
to feel as if a load of anxiety was removed from our minds. 

" 'What a voice that hog had ! I can hear it yet,' said I to 
Smoot. Then I suddenly observed a painful change come o'er 
the tablet of his thoughts, as if he had been eating cucumbers. 
Four horsemen, waving their guns, galloped up to the bank we 
had just left, and called to the ferryman, 'Stop them fellers! 
Stop them fellers ! ' 

"'I wonder what all the enthusiasm is about now,' said 
Smoot, smiling in a sickly way. 

" 'They stole my hogs,' bawled out our pursuers. 

" ' It's a lie,' said Smoot. 

" Even as we gazed at the opposite bank with direful fore- 
bodings, who should canter up, as gay as a youth of sixteen, but 
our old friend the patriarch. 

" ' That kind of old man,' said Smoot pettishly, 'ought to be 
put in the army, and sent to the front.' 



6oo 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



*' * He seems to be coming to the front as fast as you want 
him to,' remarked the guard. 

''The guard 'took us in out of the wet,' as he expressed it; 
and the boat was sent back to bring over the avengers of blood. 
The tatterdemalions gathered around us in high glee. That 

two members off Duff's regi- 
ment should be accused of 
stealing hogs was a source of 
great gratification to them. 




I 



"STOP THEM FELLERS! 



To hear them talk, one 
would have supposed 
that ^ they would not 
accept a hog as a gift. 
They were profoundly 
shocked at the gravity of the charge made against us, and 
they were unanimously of the opinion that the Confederacy 
would gain its independence before we got out of the bull-pen. 
The officer in command took down the testimony of the aged 
hog-man, which was all unfavorable, particularly to me. We 
denied every thing, and insisted on proof. The old man was 
eloquent about the depravity of the Confederate soldiers, and 



ARRESTED. 6oi 

he hoped to Uve to see the Yankees come and protect the 
people from their Confederate protectors. Some of his re- 
marks were also personal in their nature. 

** The ambulance was searched for more evidence, but Smoot 
had hidden the knife. He was very shrewd, except with his 
mouth. He blurted out, ' Oh, yes ! you are hunting for the 
knife with which we killed ' — 

*'A judicious punch in the ribs stopped him just in time. 
We were finally urged to get into our ambulance, and drive to 
the brigade camp, an escort of two mounted men accompany- 
ing us. We were to report, under guard, to Gen. Gurley, who 
was in command. 

" ' This sorter reminds me of a funeral procession,' said Smoot. 

'' ' It will be a funeral procession, sure enough, if you don't 
hobble that mouth of yours. From this moment you keep the 
brake on, and let me drive. You nearly upset every thing 
three or four times.' 

" 'All right. If they ask me if I killed the hog, I'll not open 
my mouth.' 

''About dusk we reached the camp, and were introduced to 
Gen. Gurley in his tent. He was a raw-boned, red-whiskered 
man of about forty-five or fifty years of age. 

'"This is a very serious charge against you,' he said, after 
reading the letter of introduction from the officer who arrested 
us. We thought so too; although Smoot was going to explain 
that it was a very small speckled shote, and not at all fat, when 
I gave him a look that halted him in his mad career. But he 
broke loose again, and was saying that ' it was not as serious 
as it might have been if the hog ' — I punched him again, 
and proceeded to converse with the general, regretting that 
the corpus delicti, the pig, accompanied by the old man, was 
not brought face to face with me, so that I might fill them with 
confusion. I made such a plausible speech that I saw the gen- 
eral w|s moved. Smoot told me several years afterwards, that, 
after my speech, he had never been able to persuade himself 
that he had any thing to do with the transaction. After I had 
given the case to the jury, Gen. Gurley fixed his piercing gray 
eyes on me, and said in a deep graveyard voice, — 



602 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

'* ' Didn't you shoot that hog ? * 

** Smoot tried to correct the general, that it was only a 
speckled shote, and not a hog, that we killed ; but I kicked 
him on the sly. 

" * Didn't you shoot that hog ? ' repeated the general. 

"As it was Smoot who' was guilty of the bad marksmanship, 
I raised up my hand, and swore that I did not shoot that hog ; 
and I did it with a solemnity that would have convinced the 
old patriarch himself that the hog had committed suicide. I 
appealed to Smoot to speak right out, and say if I was guilty. 
Smoot, who was improving in diplomacy, stated that he was 
with me all the time, and he would have been bound to see it 
if I had fired the shot. 

" ' And you didn't see anybody shoot that hog t ' asked the 
general incredulously. 

** Smoot had a relapse of stupidity ; for he was about to ex- 
plain how I was looking at the old man when the shot was 
fired, when I broke in with most earnest protestations of not 
having seen anybody shoot. 

" Gen. Gurley was fully convinced of our innocence, ordered 
our release, and spoke seriously of having charges preferred 
against the officer who arrested us. But I interceded for him,, 
alleging that he was very ignorant, and filled with zeal for the 
Confederacy ; that it would, perhaps, be best not to discourage 
him. I heard afterwards, that, when Gen. Gurley learned the 
real facts of the case, he said he was astonished at how much 
ability and talent there was among the rank and file of the 
army." 

" Did you ever see the old patriarch again } " asked the 
doctor. 

" Once, about two months afterwards, I had that pleasure. 
Half a dozen of us had received our furloughs, and started for 
home. We did not go by Lanesport, but struck across the 
country. Just about night we reached the main road, and, 
stopping at a farm, obtained permission to stay all night. 
When we sat down at the supper-table, whom should I perceive 
at the head of it but the old patriarch. During the meal he 
recognized me. He stared at me in speechless amazement. 



A BASE INSINUATION. 



60 ' 



Then he reached over, and, handing me a plate, asked, ' Won't 
you take some spare-ribs ? ' 

"■ I did take some, and praised them more than they deserved, 
complaining that we never got any pork in camp. I was in 
the best of spirits, and told many humorous stories of soldier- 
life, which frequently convulsed the aged spouse of the patri- 
arch, who would not have been so liberal with her applause if 
she had known who I was. The old gentleman kept on passing 
me spare-ribs. He was a jolly old customer, and had forgiven 
me ; for he gave me an indescribable wink, as much as to say, 
'This is our joke.' 
After supper, being 
much fatigued, we 
retired to our apart- 
ments. Mine was 
next to that of the 
aged couple, but I 
could hear every 
word that was said 
in the next room. 
The old lady said, 
giggling,— 

** ' What a funny 

fellow that little "old woman, he is the one that killed our SHOTE." 

one is ! ' 

" ' Old woman,' was the response, * he is the one that killed 
our shoteJ 

" Next morning, at breakfast, the old lady sat perfectly rigid, 
with a hard, stern expression of countenance. The old man 
was very reticent. His wife had evidently been exerting her 
influence over him. Like a delegate to a convention, he had 
been instructed. Being in one of my most reckless moods, I 
asked him if the passing Confederate soldiers ever killed any of 
nis hogs. He said very emphatically that they did not do any 
thing else. 

"*This is the first time I ever heard of Confederate sol- 
diers committing such an outrage,' I remarked with astonish- 
ment. 




6o4 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

" * You never stole our speckled shote, either ? ' screamed the 
old lady. 

" There was universal astonishment, and I boldly denied the 
base insinuation. All of my comrades put in a good word for 
me. Sergeant McLaren said that he had raised me, and that I 
had never stolen the value of a pin during my whole life. An- 
other said, that, if there was one man in camp who would 
never do a wrong act, I was the guilty party. Still another 
proved a complete alibi ; stating he was with me in San An- 
tonio, five hundred miles distant, when the hog was killed. 

'' * Have you got a twin-brother .'' ' said the old patriarch. 

" *No twin-brother.' 

"The subject was dropped at this point. When we were 
leaving, the old man came close to me, and, whispering in my 
ear, said, — 

" 'All I've got to say is, that, if you ain't killed while you are 
out stealing hogs, you are going to be the very best lawyer in 
Texas.'" 



I 



MINERAL RESOURCES OF TEXAS. 



605 



CHAPTER XLIII. 




V-.. 






FOUND extensive beds of mas:- 
netic iron ore in many of the 
counties bordering on 
the Rio Grande. Iron 
ore exists in vast quan- 
tities in many parts of 
the State, Smelting 
the iron ores of Texas 
has been attempted 
only on a small scale. 
What has been smelted 
has yielded from sixty 
"- to seventy-five per cent 
of metallic iron. The 
coal that is found in Texas is not suitable for smelting pur- 
poses, as it contains more or less sulphur. In different parts 
of the State, beds of lignite exist. Lignite is useless for smelt- 
ing purposes, and, so far, efforts to convert it into coke have 
failed : but no doubt some chemical process will be discovered 
to make coke of the lignite ; and then the vast iron deposits, 
now valueless, can be utilized. 

I could tell a great deal about the copper, iron, silver, lead, 
and coal that are lying down under the prairie-flower and 
mountain-cactus in Texas : but to do so I would have to speak 
of the azoic rocks, Jurassic period, cretaceous era, permian for- 
mations, tertiary strata, and words to that effect ; and that 
would only be taking advantage of the reader who does not 
know whether the old red sandstone is found above or below 
the carboniferous series, and to whom it is a matter of indiffer- 



6o6 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

ence whether foraminiferous shells of the FiLstilina cylindrica 
occur in abundance in the siliceous limestones, or are only to 
be found in small quantities in the paleozoic series. 

I have considered the matter, and have concluded that it 
would not be right for me to talk that way, as I am neither a 
geological survey nor a mineralogical bureau : so I simply dis- 
miss the subject with the statement, that, if the possession of 
undeveloped mines abounding in vast quantities of precious 
metals and valuable minerals, is indicative of wealth, Texas is 
one of the most opulent corners of the earth. 

The doctor had a great admiration for journalism. It was 
his opinion that the press was a powerful agency in the dis- 
semination of intelligence. He thought the most convincing 
proof of the great intelligence of the American people was to 
be found in the fact that there were so many newspapers pub- 
lished all over the country, just as some people regard the vast 
number of religious beliefs in the United States as proof of the 
great piety of the people. The doctor took quite an interest 
in our journalistic acquaintance ; and, as we rode along, he in- 
terrogated him at considerable length in regard to journalism 
in Texas. 

" I suppose," said the doctor, " that your experience on the 
Texas press has been varied t " 

** Yes, varied and painful. The world little knows what 
some of us have to suffer. You have heard of the celebrated 
doctor who tried all his newly discovered medicines, and com- 
binations of medicines, on his apprentice. Well, some editors 
do that sort of thing. When I was local on a San Antonio 
paper, the editor used to try his editorials on me until I was 
almost reduced to a skeleton." 

'' Tried his editorials on you } " 

" Yes, he tried them on me. I would be busy endeavoring 
to capture a joke, and pull it into my local column backwards 
by the tail. The editor would stop me in my mad career, and 
ask me if I didn't want to hear him read his editorial aloud. 
If I had told the truth, I would have said that I preferred a 
dose of castor-oil, and he would have thought that my heart 
was not in the success of the paper. So I would smile as if I 



PROFOUNDLY EXASPERATING. 



607 



had been invited to an oyster-supper, and say, * Certainly, 
colonel, don't disappoint me.' And he never did." 

'•Were his editorials so profoundly uninteresting.^" queried 
the doctor. 

"They were profoundly exasperating. If the colonel had 
ever attempted to read one in public, he would have been 
lynched. But what caused me the most suffering was the way 
he administered them. I could have borne it if he had merely 




TRYING HIS EDITORIALS ON THE REPORTER. 



read them over once ; but, with a refinement of cruelty that 
would have done credit to a Spanish inquisitor, he read them 
to me by sections. He would read ten lines at a time, then 
stop to consult the dictionary as to whether he should spell a 
word with one / or with two." 

"Why didn't you refuse to listen to him } " asked the doctor. 

"Nice advice, that, from a peace-loving Yankee who is 
always deprecating lawlessness in the South ! I did hint to 
the colonel, once, that I had to hurry off to write an official 



6o8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

account of a cock-fight ; but the old fellow flung the paper- 
weights around, and got mad. He also flung out hints that 
my princely salary was too much for the concern to stagger 
under, — draining its life-blood, he said. Always after that, 
when he offered to read an editorial to me, I encouraged him 
to do his worst." 

" You spoke of his peculiar way of reading the editorial. ' F 
did not quite understand." 

^ *'He would read the first ten lines. After I had listened to 
that in an entranced sort of way, silently gnashing my teeth, 
and wishing for death, he would perpetrate ten lines more, and 
then, with a cheerfulness that I utterly failed to share, he would 
say,— 

'' ' Would you like very much to hear a little more 1 ' 

" I intimated that life would be a barren waste without it, 
and then he would continue the assault. Now, if he had begun 
where he left off, I would not have complained so much ; but 
he began again at the very beginning. He even read the 
head-lines over to me. Then he would indite ten more lines, 
and go back to the beginning and re-read it all over, until he 
had inspired me with a two-column article on some such live 
topic as 'What Salmon P. Chase thought of Charles Sumner.' 
It was like paying compound interest on a note for which you 
had never received the slightest compensation. Cutting off a 
dog's tail by inches would have been a much more merciful 
proceeding. If, after he had got through, I didn't say that it 
was superior to the leading editorials of the New-York press, 
and beg him to read it over, so that I could become thoroughly 
saturated with its beauties, I was sure to hear ominous pane- 
^gyrics on a talented young journalist from the North, who was 
in town, and offering to work for a nominal salary. My salary, 
which I never got except in homoeopathic doses, was phenome- 
nal — phenomenally small." 

" What became of the paper ? " 

" It is dead now. There was, however, one green oasis in 
that dreary Sahara of journalism. On the colonel's desk was a 
file, or rather a straight, upright wire, upon which he used to 
impale all the live items and choice selections from the ex- 



DISSEMINATING INTELLIGENCE, 609 

changes. Our sanctum was on the second floor of the building ; 
and it had one window facing the distant Gulf of Mexico, and 
another opening on the street. The colonel's desk was right 
between these two windows. All day long the Gulf breeze 
was going through the ofHce. This was a pleasant change, for 
usually that was the sheriff's business. The principal occupa- 
tion, however, of the breeze, was to distribute the clippings 
that the colonel had carefully filed. It seemed to me that the 
breeze did not blow until the colonel had all the clippings on 
the file ; but then it distributed faster, by a great deal, than 
the post-office clerks do when the public is waiting for its mail. 
The breeze would wrestle with the clippings, and, taking the 
topmost item, — a dainty bit of wit, perhaps, from 'The New- 
York News,' — would make its escape from our dull sanctum 
out into the street. A recipe for making blackberry-brandy, 
or a cure for bots, would gradually work itself up to the point 
of the file, and out it would go, as if it feared the colonel was 
going to read one of his editorials to it. Then, perhaps, an 
article on the ' History of Oddfellowship in China during the 
Middle Ages,' or the ' Pan-Anglicanism of the Early Martyrs,' 
would slide out. The colonel, being a little short-sighted, was 
utterly oblivious to all this. He would slap a clipping on the 
file with the remark that 'somebody must come in at night 
and steal the clippings off the file ; ' and, even while he was 
speaking, the Gulf breeze would be struggling with that very 
clipping. Everybody about the office was unjustly suspected." 
"Why didn't you explain to the colonel about the breeze } " 
/'That would have deprived me of my only source of amuse- 
ment. It kept me in good spirits to observe the dazed look on 
the colonel's face when the foreman called on him for copy, 
and he reached for the clippings that had just floated out of 
the window. Like Don Quixote's books, they had gone off 
with a wicked magician, who was jealous of the owner's fame. 
If it had not been for the fun that the Gulf breeze and the 
colonel were having with each other, I would have died. An- 
other reason why I did not interfere was, that on a former occa- 
sion, when I made some suggestions, I was told by the colonel, 
that, if ever he needed any advice from me, I would be officially 

39 



6lO ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

notified through the proper channels. On the other hand, the 
Gulf breeze had never given me any offence : so why should I 
tell on it ? " 

The newspaper-man continued, '' There was one thing on 
that file that was too heavy for the Gulf breeze. It was at the 
bottom of the file, and was one of the colonel's ablest editorials, 
which was being held over. I think it was about * The Time- 
honored Principles of the Democratic Party.' Day after day 
the breeze fought in vain with that heavy editorial. At last it 
had found its match. Not a leaf fluttered. 

" One day a small cyclone struck San Antonio. It twisted 
off old cottonwood-trees that had shaded the monks who had 
settled San Antonio. It blew the roofs from houses with 
mortgages on them. The centre of the cyclone struck our 
office, and blew out the window-sashes, and hurled paper- 
weights across the street. It struck that heavy editorial, but 
it did not move it an inch. It was like so much solid lead. The 
cyclone gave it up in disgust, and there was an immense calm." 

'* Whew ! " said the doctor. 

" But those clippings did a heap of good. The choicest 
American newspaper literature was scattered all over that part 
of town, much to the enlightenment and amusement of the 
•inhabitants. On the lee-side of the ' Herald ' office, the people 
were ten times more intelligent than those to the windward. 
You could not go ten steps without seeing either a poem or 
some interesting paragraph. Wherever you looked, you saw 
men walking along slowly, absorbed in something they had 
stumbled upon. Hardly a day passed but somebody was run 
over by a hack ; and so interesting was the reading-matter that 
they hardly noticed the accident. The colonel was the most 
talented man with a pair of scissors that I ever saw. All the 
subscribers in the west end of town quit taking the paper. 
They picked up their education on the streets. They had no 
need of the newspaper. They found all the news they wanted 
as they went along. A great many made large scrap-books 
from the material furnished them by the colonel and the Gulf 
breeze. That was kept up all summer, and until it got to be 
too cold to keep the windows open." 



AN EXCITED PATRON, 6ll 

*' Do you like the position of local editor ? " 

" If a local editor tries to please everybody, he is going to 
make a failure of it. It requires a great deal of experience 
to find out what people want. For instance : one day an old 
patron of the paper, living in the country, came into town for 
relaxation. He relaxed himself, galloped his horse through 
the principal streets, yelling, and shooting off his pistol. It 
took five policemen to show him the way to the bastile. As 
he was a friend to the paper, I gave him another name in my 
report, and toned down some of the most damaging details of 
his spree. He was fined ; and, in the goodness of my heart, I 
suppressed that fact entirely. Now, what do you suppose that 
old outcast did .'^ " 

" Gave you a new suit of clothes } " 

''Pshaw!" 

"Presented you with a gold-headed cane.-*" 

**That comes nearer it. After he pranced int the office, 
with blood in his eyes, he bawled out, ' Stop my paper ! I've 
been taking it for fifteen years ; but, if ever I read it again, I 
hope I may be hanged. Here I come to town, and create the 
biggest kind of a sensation. There hasn't been as much 
enthusiasm in the place during the last ten years. No telling 
how many extra copies of your blamed paper you have sold in 
consequence ; and how do you repay me for my enterprise "f 
You go and give the credit of the whole affair to some other 
man. I don't believe there is any such man as you have put 
down there. You just did it to swindle me, to break me down 
in the estimation of my friends. You want to disgrace me.' 
You never put in about me shooting a piece off a dog's tail, and 
me a-gallopin'. You left out all that part about it having taken 
five policemen two hours to get me to the lockup. Why didn't 
you put in that I sassed the recorder, and dared him to come 
out into the street .-* ' 

** I told the agitated patron," said the reporter, "that we had 
changed the name, and left out the worst items, so as not to 
hurt his feelings. When I told him that, he at first got mad, 
and said I insulted him ; but then the absurdity of his feelings 
being hurt by newspaper criticism struck him, and he laughed 



6l2 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

heartily. He explained that his object in raising the row was to 
gain prestige among his people out on the frontier. He was 
running for sheriff, and wanted to make political capital ; and 
we had spoiled his plans by suppressing his name. He was 
appeased by a promise to get his name right in the weekly edi- 
tion, not omitting even the most nauseating details ; and he 
paid in advance for two hundred copies, intending to circulate 
them as a campaign document. 

" On another occasion I left out from the recorder's court 
proceedings the name of an old patron who had been fined for 
being drunk and disorderly; and, next time he came to town, he 
complained too. His neighbors, not seeing his name, as usual, 
among those who had been fined for being drunk, insisted that 
he had never been to town at all." 

" You gave the full particulars and correct name in future, I 
suppose," said the doctor. 

" I tried that ; but it didn't answer, either. It made things a 
great deal worse. A post-trader, who gave us all his job-print- 
ing, came to town and put up at a hotel, and, out of gratitude 
for some more job-printing we expected to get, I gave him a 
flaming notice ; said it was one of the most important events 
in the city since the fall of the Alamo ; hoped that his stay 
would be as pleasant to him as it would be advantageous to the 
San Antonio mercantile fraternity. He bought all his supplies 
in San Antonio. 

" He came around, raving like a maniac. He wanted his 
paper stopped. It seemed that he had a great many creditors 
in town that he didn't want to see. He expected to pass 
through without disturbing them ; but, when they read in the 
paper that he was in town, they called on him on an average of 
three a minute. He informed our staff, that, when he wanted 
his name in the paper, he would let us know. The rival office 
got two hundred dollars' worth of job-printing. 

" The only safe way to do was to call on the man himself, 
and ask him if he wanted us to get out an extra, announcing 
his arrival. Very often he would reply, ' No ; but you can 
state that I am still at Fort Concho, and will not be down for 
six months.' 



A CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION, 613 

*• I tell you, doctor, when it comes to suppressing intelli- 
gence, the press is a wonderful engine." 

'^ I should think," said the doctor, "that it would be very 
difficult to find editors in Texas." 

*' Difficult to find editors in Texas ! It is only difficult to 
find them when you have a bill against them. It all depends 
on who is looking for them. If you mean that there are very 
few men willing to assume the arduous and responsible duties 
of the profession, then you are mistaken. Every man who is 
not a newspaper-man believes, that, if he were to take hold of 
a dying paper, he would soon have it rivalling ' The New-York 
Herald.' I refer particularly to those who have money, and 
put it in a newspaper for safe keeping. There is money in the 
newspaper business — if you put it there." 

" But I should think the paper would stop when the appro- 
priations were exhausted," said the doctor, somewhat bewildered. 

" It can't stop any more than the interest on a note can stop. 
There is a change of administration at short intervals, but the 
paper keeps right straight on. Every few months there is a 
new editor. One editor is tendered a lucrative position on the 
staff of some sheep-man, to herd sheep at the rate of twenty 
dollars a month. What is fame as a journalist, compared to all 
that fatness } The editor then writes his valedictory, to the 
effect, that, owing to over-work, he has been forbidden by his 
medical adviser to write any more ; that he needs rest ; and that 
he will spend the season where pure air and exercise may bene- 
fit him. So he resigns his crown and sceptre, and leads a 
happy and contented life, moulding the destinies of a sheep- 
ranch instead of those of the nation. But, as I told you, 
when one door shuts, another opens. There is always some 
ambitious man aching to run the paper for a while, anyhow." 

*' But is there no offset to these disadvantages } I've heard 
that admiring friends frequently present the editor with gold- 
headed canes and other valuable presents, and I am always 
reading of his being invited to entertainments and banquets." 

** Yes, that's what the outside world thinks. It is a popular 
delusion that congressmen and other public men are continu- 
ally arresting the unwilling editor, taking him to clothing- 



6 14 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

stores, and fitting him out from head to foot, regarding it as a 
personal insult if the editor does not pick out the most expen- 
sive suit in the house. It is also supposed, that, after the 
editor is arrayed in his new garments, the congressman forces 
open the clinched editorial fist, and places in the palm thereof 
a thousand-dollar check. That's why so many men sigh to 
become editors. Now, I have elected three or four congress- 
men, and I know all about it. I started the boom, and kept it 
up until I got them into their seats in Congress. One day, 
when there was a large crowd present (I think they had been 
invited for the occasion), one of the elected, knowing I did not 
smoke, presented me with a cigar. No doubt the average 
editor would betray the country for thirty pieces of silver, and 
he often gets credit for having done so." 

"Then, you are positive that there is something else in the 
life of the Texas editor besides roses and complimentary 
presents," said the doctor. 

** Yes : the general impression is, that all day long country 
wagons are standing in front of the sanctum, unloading pump- 
kins and other tropical fruits. But the wagons are not there, 
and the editor is happy that they are not. In regard to the 
entire newspaper business, distance enchants. Occasionally a 
sturdy old farmer brings in a watermelon for the editor. He 
places it on exhibition on the counter, where it is to stay, for 
the whole city to come and stare at, until it gets to be too stale 
to eat. The old farmer represents the berry to be most unique, 
and remorselessly gives details regarding its pedigree, and 
tells how he and the climate succeeded in raising such a won- 
derful product. 

" If all the bankers, clergymen, lawyers, and the rest of the 
elitey do not swarm over to the ofifice in battalions, to see with 
their own eyes what the old farmer can do, with some slight 
assistance from the soil and climate, he thinks the paper has 
no influence. He converts the sanctum into a public hall, and 
delivers agricultural addresses to all who come in." 

"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that you are not dis- 
I osed to encourage the hard-working tiller of the soil." 

" He does not need it. It is the editor who ought to have 



THE FARMER AND THE WATERMELON, 615 



troops sent to his relief, and be patted on the back. The edit- 
or can bear up under visits from the sheriff: he is used to 
that. He can smile when a man comes in with a gun to pro- 
cure an explanation of some personal item ; but, when the 
wagon of the honest farmer drives up, a cold perspiration 
gathers in drops as big as marbles on the editorial brow. If 
the watermelon were a bombshell, it would not produce so much 
consternation. You 
can form some idea 
as to when the shell 
will go off, but you 
can never tell when 
the old farmer and 
his watermelon will 
go off. If he should 
take a drop too 
much (which he 
seldom fails to do), 
then, of course, the 
ceremonies are 
much more impres- 
sive. And all this 
time the printers 
are calling for copy, 
and the old farmer 
keeps on delivering 
his agricultural ad- 
dress. If you inter- 
rupt him, he will 
stop his paper; and 
you are not anxious to antagonize the agricultural interests oi 
the State. At the same time two watermelons a day would 
ruin the paper. 

" I once suggested to the editor of our paper, and also to 
the comptroller in charge of the business department, that we 
would make money by mutilating the granger with a club, and 
getting out an extra, with full particulars of the outrage, at 
five cents a copy." 




AN AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 



6i6 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



"What is there so dreadful about the honest old granger?" 
asked the doctor. 

"Besides what I have told you of his relentless spirit of 
persecution, he expects a lengthy notice about that watermelon. 
He stays over one day so as to get the daily paper containing 
it. When he reads the notice, he is dissatisfied : it abounds in 
personal insults, such as not mentioning the year that he came 
to Texas. As he proceeds to read it, he becomes more and 
more exasperated. There is no mention of his having taken 
Sam Houston aside, and advised him to fight, anyhow, at San 

Jacinto. As he gets through 
reading the article, he ap- 
proaches the editor, and says, 
*You haven't said a word 
about my bein' a candidate 
for constable. Last year I 
gave the other paper a melon 
that lacked five pounds of 
being as heavy as this one, 
and it said I was a gentleman 
of the old school. No, gentle- 
men, I see you don't want to 
assist the struggling agricul- 
tural interests.' And, back- 
ing his wagon, he asks you to 
help him lift in his water- 
melon. Then he takes it down to the rival office. 

" I reckon," continued our journalistic friend, " that, like the 
proprietor of the big watermelon, I am a little too diffuse. 
Don't you want me to go off by myself somewhere t " 

The doctor protested, that, if there was any thing that pleased 
him particularly in Texas, it was the utterances of the reporter. 
It was so rare nowadays, he said, to find a man who adhered 
rigidly to the truth, that, when he met one such, he loved to 
listen to him. 

''The Texas editor must have a hard life of it," said the 
doctor. 

"Yes: there is 'The Bugle,' for instance. The new editor 




GOING OVER TO THE OPPOSITION. 



A BANKRUPT NEWSPAPER. 



617 



always feels certain that he is able to revivify that debilitated 
newspaper, and restore it to vigorous life. All he can do, how- 
ever, only keeps it from dying. * The Bugle ' still lives, although 
it has taken the sheriff into partnership a dozen times. 







LOST THE COMBINATION OF THE SAFE. 



"The financial condition of the institution makes it a part of 
the duties of the business-manager sometimes to go off fishing 
on Saturday evenings, or to lose the combination of the safe." 

*''The Bugle' must have owed everybody," said the doctor. 



6l8 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

*' It was worse off than that : it owed five men out of every 
four." 

** You mean four men out of every five ? *' 

" No : I mean five men out of every four. I know that of 
my own knowledge. It may afterwards have succeeded in 
owing six or seven men out of every four ; but I know of it 
owing five men out of four. I heard them say so," remarked 
the newspaper-man with much emphasis. 

"I don't understand that," said the doctor. "You must 
have a new kind of arithmetic down here." 

The reporter was perfectly serious. He replied, " I would not 
have believed it myself, if I had not seen it. One day there 
was a financial crisis in 'The Bugle' office. There used to 
be a financial crisis — a change of ministry — every few 
months. I was coming down Commerce Street, when I met 
Copeland, the live-stock editor. He said, * Have you heard 
that "The Bugle" has got the sheriff on its staff again .^ ' 

" I answered that I had not, but was in no way surprised. 
Just then Clandon, who used to be on a Houston paper, strolled 
up ; and, presently, Gould, who was on the * Express,' came 
along ; and we all stood there, and talked about ' The Bugle ' 
and its financial problems. I remarked that *The Bugle 
owed me fifty dollars. Copeland said, * Put me down for about 
forty dollars. I am not bragging about the amount, but 1 
don't care to be left out in the cold.' 

" Then Gould said that * The Bugle ' had got into him for a 
hundred or so during the time he was local editor. Clandon 
spoke up, and said, * I've sued for the two hundred and fifty 
dollars they owe me.' 

** I exclaimed then, ' Here are four of us, and " The Bugle " 
owes each one of us : we are all "Bugle" sufferers.' 

"Then Clandon burst out laughing, and said, 'There are 
five. I've just received a power-of -attorney from Bickley to 
sue for what they owe him ; so he makes the fifth, as I legally 
represent him. In this crowd of four there are five " Bugle " 
sufferers.' " 



THE OLD HUNTER. 



619 




..,0=^ 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

\" Fredericksburg there was 
added to our party an old 
frontiersman, who was going 
to Austin. He had not seen a 
railroad for twenty-two years. 
The old man rode into our camp one evening while we were at 
supper. From the moment we first saw him until he had wiped 
his mouth on his sleeve, after sharing our supper, the only word 
he spoke was, "Howdy." He seemed to take it for granted 
that he was welcome, and that he had a right to a share in our 
supper. 

The meal being disposed of, the doctor and myself were 
soon engaged in conversation with the old hunter, a veritable 
Leather-stocking. His face seemed to be constructed of 
leather. His small, keen, deep-set eyes, overshadowed by 
shaggy, terrier-like eyebrows, and his general appearance, 
made an extraordinary impression on the doctor. Here was 
a man who had hunted, fought, and tramped over almost every 
foot of ground, from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. He had 
crossed the trackless ''Staked Plains," and hunted grizzlies 
among the Sierras. The doctor had a particular reason for 
cultivating the acquaintance of the hardy frontiersman. As 
the reader has, no doubt, already discovered, the doctor 
imagines that he is a poet ; while the fact exists, that he is 
only about as much a poet as a cobbler is a shoemaker. 

He claimed to have written a poem descriptive of a thrilling 
scene on the Staked Plains. It told of a cruel Mexican maiden 



620 ON A MEXICAN MUS2ANG, 

at the Presidio, a town on the Rio Grande, who promised at a 
ball to become the bride of a young man, conditional on his 
bringing her a flask of water from the Mustang Spring on the 
Llano Estacado. I had explained the geographical obstacles 
and the palpable absurdities in the alleged poem. I contended 
that even the wildest kind of poetry ought to have some slight 
foundation of probability. The doctor refused to make any 
change in the poem until he could consult some better authority 
than I was. He had recited the thing all along the road until 
I was sick at heart. 

*'Now, doctor," said I, **here is a man who knows all about 
Mexicans, the same as if he were one himself. He has been 
over the Staked Plains, and has doubtless officiated at many a 
fandango. Just try your^poem on him, and see what he says. 
Turn yourself loose. I'll try and stand it : I've got hardened. 
But we had better brace up the old man first. Hand him 
that flask." 

The doctor was delighted. At last he would be vindicated. 
So he recited, with much pathos, as follows : — 

" ' If I may trust your love,' she cried, 
' And you would have me for a bride. 
Ride over yonder plain, and bring 
Your flask full from the Mustang Spring; 
Fly, fast as the western eagle's wing, 
O'er the Llano Estacado.' 

*' He heard, and bowed without a word ; 
His gallant steed he slightly spurred; 
He turned his face, and rode away 
Toward the grave of dying day, 
And vanished with its parting ray 
On the Llano Estacado." 

'* Whar did all these 'ere tuk place .^" asked the old frontiers- 
man. 

'* In the last verse, it says at Presidio." 

*' Presidio," said the old man, " is on the Rio Grande, 'bout 
five hundred miles south of the Staked Plains ; and, ef he was 
to travel west, he would fetch up on the Gulf of Californy some- 



THE LLANO ESTACADO. 



621 



^vhar, — the durndest place for snakes and no grass you ever 
seed. Moreover, he could travel nowhars after dark, specially 
if he was sarchin' for some pertickler spring. Besides, ef he 
really wanted to marry the gal, he mought have gone down to 
the river and filled the flask, and, after playin' hookey, brought 
it back. How could she tell what sort o' water thar was in a 
spring nobody could get to, pertickerly as all water is mostly 
alike.? I 
know all 
about their 
fandangoes : 
I've been 
thar. I nev- 
er noticed 
that them 
style of 
M e X i c a n 
w i m m e n 
what a t- 
tends them 
bailes was 
ever anxious 
for water. 
Now, ef the 
fl a s k had 
some mes- 
cal in it, 
which is 
wusser than 
Jersey light- 
ning, thar 

moudit hev been some sense in the thing. — Kurnel, just reach 
me that flask some more." And the old trapper refreshed his 
memory with a strong, healthy pull. 

The doctor was somewhat discouraged, but he proceeded to 
recite, — 

" Night came, and found him riding on ; 
Day came, and still he rode alone. 




ON THE LLANO ESTACADO. 



622 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 













He spared not spur, he drew not rein, 
Across that broad, unchanging plain, 
Till he the Mustang Spring might gain, 
On the Llano Estacado." 

"So he rid all night, hunting for a spring on the Staked 
Plains, did he? He must hev jest come out from the States. 
Why, the durned fool would have got lost, and never come 

nigh no 
spring. I 
reckon, may- 
be, he fol- 
lered up the 
street-lamps 
or the tele- 
graph-poles. 
Very likely 
he stopped 
every once 
in a while, 
and asked 
a police- 
man w h a r 
the spring 
was." 

Then the 
old man 
laughed 
what was intended for a very sarcastic laugh. 

The doctor, with a heroism that was truly sublime, con- 
tinued, — 

" A little rest, a little draught, 
Hot from his hand, and quickly quaffed : 
His flask was filled, and then he turned. 
Once more his steed the Magues spurned. 
Once more the sky above him burned, 
On the Llano Estacado." 

** So he got thar, did he ? " said the old hunter, refreshing 
himself once more. ''Well, ef a feller could start out over 




DOCTOR READING POEM. 



THE CRUEL MEXICAN MAIDEN. 623 

night, and find the place in the dark, thar must hev been a big 
waggin-road. It seems he got thar next morning. I've rid 
three days and nights without no water, and didn't think any 
thing of it. After his horse had filled up and ate some grass, 
he orter got back that night. So I don't see nothing to make 
no poetry or other fuss about. He didn't hev no trouble gitting 
back, did he } He could make the trip by daylight, that is, ef 
the Staked Plains was in Mexico ; but, bein' whar they are, he 
would hev ter travel about two weeks before he could get to 
the outside edge of 'em. Look here, stranger, I'm an old man, 
and I don't want no tricks. Ef you think, because I'm sorter 
old and feeble, you can get off any of them rigmaroles on me, 
thar will be a difficulty right hyar, now." And he glanced 
significantly at a Winchester rifle. 

I calmed him down with a drink, and explained to him that 
the doctor was merely in pursuit of information, while the 
doctor, in a tremulous tone, read, — 

" How hot the quivering landscape glowed ! 
His brain seemed boiling as he rode. 
Was it a dream, a drunken one, 
Or was he really riding on ? 
Was that a skull that gleamed and shone 
On the Llano Estacado ? 

" ' Brave steed of mine, brave steed ! ' he cried, 
^ So often true, so often tried, 
Bear up a little longer yet.' 
His mouth was black with blood and sweat: 
Heaven ! how he longed his lips to wet. 
On the Llano Estacado ! 

'■'■ And still, within his breast, he held 
The precious flask so lately filled. 
Oh for a drink ! but well he knew, 
If empty it should meet her view, 
Her scorn ; but still his longing grew. 
On the Llano Estacado. 

" His horse went down. He wandered on, 
Giddy, blind, beaten, and alone. 



624 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

While upon cushioned couch you lie, 
Oh, think how hard it is to die 
Beneath the cruel, unclouded sky 
Of the Llano Estacado ! 

" At last he staggered, stumbled, fell, — 
His day was done, he knew full well, — 
And raising to his lips the flask. 
The end, the object, of his task, 
Drank to her: more she could not ask. 
Ah ! the Llano Estacado ! 

" That night, at the Presidio, 
Beneath the torchlight's wavy glow. 
She danced, and never thought of him, 
The victim of a woman's whim, 
Lying, with face upturned and grim. 
On the Llano Estacado." 



As soon as the doctor finished, the old frontiersman chuckled 
until we thought he was going to have a fit ; and the doctor 
was evidently very much depressed because he did not. I 
asked the old Leather-stocking if it was not possible for the 
man to have perished on the Staked Plains. He said, — 

'* I understand the hull thing. The fellow had been sent, for 
a flask of mescal, to the Mustang Spring, — the name of the 
benzinery probably. That mescal was powerful stuff. I hev 
had some experience. He likely got on his horse with the flask, 
and, after whooping around the presidio, fell off, and had a devil 
of a time generally, until he was scooped up by the police ; 
and then he must hev writ that stuff before his head got clear 
next mornin'. That's mostly the way with poetry. I've noticed 
you can't mostly tell whether the galoot what made it was 
drunk, or jest gittin' over a drunk, when he writ it, it's so 
tangled up, an' never no sense in it, nohow. Gimme another 
pull at that flask of water from the Mustang Spring." 

The doctor had strolled off before the criticism was finished. 

The old hunter told us that he was going to Austin to try 
and find a man who had lent him ten dollars twenty years be- 
fore. "I hev been a-huntin' of him," said he, **fur years ; an' I 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM GALVESTON 625 

heerd of him in one place, and then in t'other, but I've never 
ketched up with him yet." 

" What do you v^ant to do with the man when you catch . 
him? — want to borrow another ten dollars from him?" said 
the reporter. 

*'No. I want to pay him back the ten dollars." 

" Pay back what you borrowed twenty years ago ! I didn't 
think people ever did that. I'm afraid some of my debtors will 
take more than twenty years to find me." 

" I thought newspaper reporters never lent any money," I 
suggested. 

'* Sometimes they do," said the reporter sadly. ** It is only 
a month or two ago that I had some unfortunate experience. 

*' A man borrowed two dollars and a half of^me, under prom- 
ise of paying it back in two weeks. He said, 'Of course I'll 
pay it back : I wouldn't for the world have you write me up in 
your sarcastic style — not for forty dollars.' 

" The facts are about as follows : some two months ago 1 
went down to the office about ten o'clock. The editor told me 
that ' there has been a man here five or six times to see you. 
He says he is connected with the Galveston " News." ' 

" 'Who does the gentleman look like? ' I asked. 

" ' He does not look like he had ever been a gentleman,' was 
the ungrammatical and candid reply. 

" I arrived at home about twelve o'clock ; and the first thing 
the lady of the house said was, ' There has been a fellow here 
four times to see you. He says he is connected with the Gal- 
veston " News." ' 

" ' What sort of a looking gentleman is he ? * 

" ' He looks like a tramp.' 

"Just then there was a knock at the door, and the gentleman 
from Galveston was shown into the parlor. He was tall, seedy- 
looking, and wore a rather singular cap with a peak to it. He 
also wore a long, peaked, insmuating nose ; and his whole ap- 
pearance was decidedly malarious. Knowing that the Galveston 
' News ' was one of the leading papers in the South, I asked^ 
rather incredulously, if the gentleman was a representative of 

the Galveston 'News.' Then he stretched forth his hand, and 
40 



626 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

spoke for himself. He was not exactly a representative of the 
* News/ but he had been connected with the paper. From the 
way he talked, one might have thought that he was the original 
founder. He had been a printer on the ' News,' but he had 
been discharged. He had frequently set up very amusing arti- 
cles that I had written for that paper. He thought them the 
best things he had ever read. It soon began to dawn on me, 
that, in spite of his unattractive wearing-apparel, my visitor 
was a man of fine literary tastes and excellent judgment. He 
also thought I could draw five thousand people, if I would only 
consent to deliver a lecture. San Antonio was too small for 
me : in fact, Texas was not large enough. I ought to go to 
New York. I began to think the stranger very much of a gen- 
tleman, and hesitated to interrupt the flow of his eloquence. 
He then touched lightly on his own financial complications. 
After he had been discharged from the * News,* he determined 
to visit San Antonio, as he had never seen the sacred spot 
where the heroes of the Alamo laid 'down their lives. On ar- 
riving at San Antonio, he found himself without a cent. He 
had been obliged to pawn his garments, and he showed me a 
pawn-ticket. He did not know anybody in the Alamo City but 
myself, and me only through my literary reputation, which 
extended, he said, from Canada to Texas; but, on account of 
our connection with the ' News,' he would ask a temporary 
loan of two dollars and a half, to pay his fare from Harwood to 
Cuero, where a very lucrative position awaited him. I am not 
remarkably bright at figures, but it seemed to me that there 
was a missing link somewhere. I failed to perceive clearly the 
missing link, that connected a pecuniary jresponsibility on my 
part to pay the travelling-expenses of an intelligent compositor, 
merely because he had been discharged by the *News.' But 
my contemporary, so to speak, drew forth a late copy of the 
' News,' and began a most flattering commentary on an article 
of mine that it contained. To cut matters short, he got the 
money, upon his agreeing to refund it within two weeks. He 
is doubtless numbered with the dead, for he has never refunded 
it. I did not suffer much on account of the loss of the money, 
but there were other mortifying experiences. 



A TEMPORARY LOAN, 627 

** Immediately after I had parted with my admirer, and bade 
a farewell to my two dollars and a half, I had some conversation 
with my wife. 

*' ' Did you lend that fellow any money ? ' 

^"Y-e-s.' 

" ' How much ? ' 

"'Only two and a half.' 

" * I had a presentiment that that was what he was after. 
Hand out the rest of that money. You are not to be trusted 
with money, anyhow. Two dollars and a half ! And there's 
Alex, needs a new coat, and the taxes are not paid. What's 
his name } ' 

" ' I forgot to ask him : he seems to be a very clever gentle- 
man.' 

" * A tramp, that's what he is. We ought to have a big sign 
put up, "Money lent, and no questions asked." I reckon he 
told you that he had read those articles of yours in the "News." 
I knew that sneak would soft-soap you.' 

" This was not all ; but the foregoing is a fair sample. The 
children had been contemplating the purchase of a Mexican 
donkey to ride about on, and were saving up money for that 
purpose. Next time one of them brought up the subject, I 
caught the significant remark, ' There is really no occasion for 
another donkey about the house.* From the direction of her 
eyes, I inferred that the remark was intended for me. 

"From that time on, every thing that was purchased for 
household expenses was measured by the standard of two 
dollars and a half, the amount I had temporarily lent that dis- 
tinguished stranger from Galveston. I learned, that, for two 
dollars and a half, you could buy meat for four days, or a load of 
wood, or a pair of Shoes for the baby, or two new calico dresses. 
Never before did I appreciate how much could be obtained for 
a small sum in cash. 

"I mentioned that it was a mere temporary loan, but was 
told it would be more in the nature of a permanent investment, 
which, in the light of subsequent events, was, I think, a correct 
prophecy. 

" I saw my friend and benefactor next day, but he was not in 



628 



ON A MEXICAN .MUSTANG. 



a condition to transact business ; and I have not seen or heard 
of him since." 

So ended the reporter's narrative. 

I had a queer experience the night the doctor read his poem. 
We were camped on the prairie. I was lying on my back, look- 
ing up at the sky, and wondering if there were really enough 
poets in the world, when my attention was called to an extraor- 
dinary phenomenon. A peculiarly shaped cloud seemed to 
reach down from the sky, and then draw itself up again. I 

was very much interested 
in this meteorological per- 
turbation, which I attrib- 
uted at first to atmos- 
pheric influences ; then it 
occurred to me that the 
peculiar cloud or water- 
spout might be nearer 



than the distant horizon. 
I took off my hat, and 
found that my surmise 
was correct. Fastened to 
the rim of the hat by its 
hind-claws was a charming 
little centipede about nine 
inches long. The peculiar 
meteorological phenomena 
were produced by the in- 
sect drawing itself up, and letting itself down, in its efforts to 
find a nose or some other feature to hang on to, in order to 
facilitate its descent. The centipede is built on the iron-clad 
plan. 

Its head, or bow, comparing it to an iron-clad, is armed with 
a pair of pincers, which, besides being as venomous as the 
editor of a party organ, can bite the end off an iron safe. 
Each side is armed with about forty short legs, and each leg is 
armed with a sting like that of a wasp. The centipede termi- 
nates in a pair of hooks, which, like its pincers, are red hot — so 
I have been told by an innocent young man, who undertook to 




THE CENTIPEDE. 



THE DEVIL'S HORSE, 629 

pick one up by its stem. When a centipede anchors his head 
in the fleshy anatomy of a human being, throws out his two 
grappling-irons from his rear, and then draws its eighty odd, 
very odd, claws together, it will bring tears to the heart of an 
Irish landlord to see how the little pet holds. 

The bite of the centipede rarely causes death, but it makes 
the bitten party wish he were dead, — for a short time, at least, 
— and it leaves an ugly sore. The statement that the bite of 
the centipede does not cause death is liable to correction. The 
centipede is very apt to become a *' remains," after it bites a 
person, as there is quite a prejudice against it. For this reason, 
it is very much secluded in its habits, living in retirement 
among the rocks of old buildings. Its diet is believed to be 
insects that are not as heavily armed and iron-clad as it is. 
Why centipedes were created in the first place, and what good 
purpose they serve, are profound mysteries to the ordinary 
intellect. 

They are comparatively rare in the well-settled portion of 
Texas, being usually found in a bottle of alcohol on the show- 
case of some druggist who has a taste for the beautiful. In 
this particular, centipedes differ from some men. They are 
much more peaceful and harmless when in liquor than other- 
wise. With centipedes, as with Indians, the only good ones are 
those that are dead. 

Another of the most peculiar and interesting insects in 
Texas is called the *' devil's horse." How he came by that 
name we are unable to state. He is, however, an old resident of 
Texas, having lived in this State during the days of the Repub- 
lic of Texas ; and, as is frequently the case with early settlers, 
his antecedents are involved in much mystery. For all I know 
to the contrary, there may be indictments under another name 
pending against the devil's horse in Arkansas. 

I will not rake over the ashes of the past, or revive unpleas- 
ant memories, but proceed to describe the manner and customs 
of this mysterious bu^. 

The appearance of the devil's horse is very much against 
him, as he resembles man more than any other insect. His 
head shows a wonderful development of the bump of reverence. 



630 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



which may account for the peculiar manner in which he carries 
his fore-legs. He holds them up in front of him as if he were 
engaged in prayer, and for this reason he is called ''the praying 
insect," and is respected accordingly. It is a fact, that, like 
some other people who make a great outward show of religion, 
the devil's horse does the most of his praying with his hands : 
he uses his hands to seize his prey, and convey it to his mouth. 
The head of this insect is perched on a long neck, and seems 
to revolve on a pivot. His wings, which go to conform with his 
angelic nature, in spite of his diabolical appellation, resemble 

the long coat-tails of the 
clerical garment. If part 
of the hind-legs of the in- 
sect were shoved into a 
pair of black pants, and 
his long neck were band- 
aged up with a white tie, 
the resemblance of this 
unique insect to a New- 
England deacon of a Cal- 
vinistic turn of mind would 
be absolutely startling. As 
it is, while you look at the 
devil's horse, you are sur- 
prised that he does not get 
up and pass the hat around. 
I wish I could make more favorable comment on the moral 
attributes of this interesting insect ; but I cannot do so consci- 
entiously, as he has no sense of propriety whatever. He seems 
to think that man's lower extremities were constructed espe- 
cially to afford devil's horses opportunities to climb, which 
uncalled-for familiarity is usually resented on the spot, with 
disastrous results to the intruder. 

The devil's horse is a great seeker after light. When the 
lights are placed in the parlor, and the stars in the blue azure 
sky, the devil's horse crawls in through the shutters, and moves 
about in as annoying a manner as if he were the landlord, and 
there were several months' back rent unpaid. He seems to 




THE DEVIL'S HORSE, 



THE DEVIL'S HORSE. 631 

like music; and, if anybody is playing on the piano, he will 
perch upon the music-rack, and, turning his ridiculous head on 
one side, will appear to pay as close attention as if he had com- 
posed the piece himself. 

If, in resenting any familiarity, you strike the insect, he will 
place his hand to the back of his head, if that is the injured 
part, and roll his eyes around at you in a reproachful manner. 

The redeeming trait in the character of the devil's horse is 
his animosity to those other nuisances, flies and mosquitoes. 
He seizes the hapless mosquito with his claws ; and, having 
removed the wings and legs, he, without saying grace at all, eats 
the body in successive bites, and winks at you as he does it. 



6^2 



ON A MEXICAN MUS2ANG, 




CHAPTER XLV. 



WE drew near Austin, we passed 
through a country that showed 
few indications of being close 
to the capital of the State. 
There were farms here and 
there, and sheep and cattle 
ranches on the banks of the 
creeks ; but most of the coun- 
try was open prairie, or rough, 
cedar-covered hills. 

The labor on most of the 
farms around Austin is done 
by negroes. The field -hand 
of slavery times is the negro 
farmer of to-day in the South. 
Those who were house-servants, 
and the post-bellum generation, 
have developed into city bar- 
bers, hotel-waiters, and preachers ; but the negro whose early 
years were spent between the cotton-rows, still inhabits the 
rural districts, and farms ''on the shares." In theory, farming 
on shares is a good thing for the colored agriculturalist. A 
white man furnishes land, teams, and implements ; the negro 
furnishes the labor ; the crops, when harvested, to be divided 
equally between landlord and tenant. In practice, and in the 
division of the shares, it does not work so satisfactorily for the 
tenant. The landlord gets the first share ; the storekeeper, 



THE COLORED FARMER. 



^Zl 



who furnished coffee, bacon, and clothing for the tenant, while 
he was making the crop, gets the other share ; and the tenant, 
for his share, gets cussed because he did not make more cotton 
and corn. The negro farmer has been heard to hint, that, if he 
could afford to keep a book-keeper, his share might be more 
satisfactory to himself. 

The colored farmer is always fat, and out of chewing-tobacco. 
He wears 

muc^-colored ' 6.<?'--^- 

clothes, with 
black patch- 
es on the 
knees. He 
is usually 
possessed 
with a wild 
and uncon- 
trollable de- 
sire to move 
slowly ; and, 
with a cheer- 
ful resigna- 
tion, he will 
endure ten 
hours of 
sleep out of 
the twenty- 
four, and 
has no am- 
bition to become rich or to own land. He is satisfied if he 
can get enough corn-bread, bacon, and coffee to feed his family. 
If he can make a living by working two days in the week, he 
will not work three. There is no mortal more contented and 
happy. No calamity to the crop will ruffle his serenity ; because 
he has nothing to lose, and only a living to make. He is calm 
and placid in presence of wire-grass in the cotton, unruffled and 
tranquil when surrounded by cockleburrs, patient and submis- 
sive when it rains (so that he cannot work), resigned and serene 




THE COUNTRY NEGRO. 



634 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

when the cow gets into the corn ; and he will at any time curb 
a turbulent desire to hoe out ten acres of cotton, suppress a 
delirious craving to grub up roots, and choke back an impatient 
longing to destroy a patch of weeds, if the clouds show indica- 
tions that catfish will bite. 

The colored agriculturalist never allows pleasure to interfere 
with business. Of course, it would be more to his taste to hoe 
out weeds; but stern duty demands his attention at the creek, 
where the catfish is waiting to bite. With praiseworthy alacrity 
he will obey the call of duty, and dig up **wu'ms" and craw- 
fish for bait, and trudge cheerfully to the creek, where he will 
toil diligently under the shade of a tree through the v/eary 
hours of a long summer day. 

The colored farmer is never too poor to own a horse. He 
may be unprovided with shoes, and may be destitute in the 
matter of a shirt ; yet he will, nevertheless, own a ten-dollar 
horse. The animal may be a superannuated plug, an unabridged 
edition of all the ills that horse-flesh is heir to, and fit only for 
the bone-mill ; yet, if by the most liberal interpretation of the 
world he can be called a horse, his owner feels that he has 
advanced a step in the Darwinian race toward a higher life : 
and when he borrows a pistol and a pair of spurs, and rides to 
town on Saturdays, he feels that he is indeed one of a nation 
of sovereigns, previous condition to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. The country darkey is not qui-te so uniformly dissipated 
in the matter of religious observances as his city brother, but 
in the course of a year he makes up a fair average. The camp- 
meeting is where he comes out strong. These meetings last 
usually from ten days to three weeks, and occur annually. His 
anxiety to take advantage of this means of grace, and of the 
watermelon-patches in the neighborhood of the camp-ground, 
is so great, that, in his religious zeal, he sacrifices his worldly 
interests, and allows his crops to '*get in the grass," and his 
neighbors' cows to get into the crops. He feels that his 
never-dying soul is of more importance than his share of the 
crop will be, after the landlord and the storekeeper get their 
share. The colored farmer does not grieve over the glories of 
the past, as the white farmer of the South does. His ambi- 



THE ''DOWN-TRODDEN AFRICAN:' 



635 



tion aims no higher than to get enough to eat in the present, 
and he cares not for the future or the past. One of his favor- 
ite sayings is, " De hoecake ob to-day am better dan de puddin' 
ob las' Sunday." 

The " down-trodden African " who lives in the cities is 
brighter, not only in intellect, but in color, than his brother on 
the farm. Besides having colored policemen, Texas can boast 
of colored militia companies, whose arms are furnished by the 
State. One 
of these 
companies 
at San An- 
tonio is 
called the 
" Coke Ri- 
fles," not 
because of 
the near 
approach 
to coal in 
the com- 
plexion of 
the mem- 
bers, but 
in honor 
of Senator 
Coke of 
Texas. 

These negro militia companies parade with all the pomp and 
circumstance of war; and no objection is raised, so thoroughly 
reconstructed have the people of Texas become. These dusky 
sons of Mars, like congressmen, have sham-battles, which look 
very dangerous, but are really only child's play. On every pos- 
sible occasion the down-trodden colored man obtrudes himself 
upon the public eye and ear. He is never bulldozed and de- 
prived of his natural and civil rights, as he is in the East, where 
the infernal spirit of caste has not yet been cast out. 

I might go on indefinitely, showing, that as far as giving the 




THE COKE RIFLES. 



636 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



colored man, not only his rights, but those of other people, no 
capital can be made for the Republican party in Texas. Not 
long since a Philadelphia man, who had never been South 
much, rode in an Austin street-car. From time to time he 
would hold his nose ; and he innocently asked one of the 
colored men in the car, *' How many more leaky gas-pipes are 
we going to pass ? " Several of the colored gentlemen in the 
car imagined that this was a personal allusion : so they ejected 
from the car, with violence, the Northern gentleman, who had 

been in the habit of talking 
about the injustice withwhich 
the South treated the negro. 
While at Austin one morn- 
ing, at a very early hour, I 
heard a succession of violent 
explosions. Everybody in 
the city was aroused from 
the slumber to which they 
are entitled by law. The ex- 
plosions startled everybody. 
They gave everybody an 
early start. It was not later 
than half-past four. The peo- 
ple were puzzled. Some 
thought it was thunder, and 
thousands of respectable peo- 
ple went out for the purpose of fixing the pipes to catch cistern- 
water. Others contented themselves with wondering how the 
Fourth of July happened to fall, this year, so late in the season. 
What does the Northern reader suppose was the cause of all 
this racket } It was the down-trodden negro firing a salute 
with a cannon, borrowed from the Democratic governor of the 
State of Texas. How is that for oppression of the negro in 
Texas } The Dark Rising Sons of Liberty, a colored organiza- 
tion of some kind, were celebrating their anniversary : so they 
took the liberty of disturbing everybody within a radius of three 
miles, at half-past four a.m., with an old piece of artillery. 
That looks like bulldozing the poor negro, does it not } 




THE DOWN-TRODDEN AFRICAN. 



A CAMEL-RANCH, 637 

In Texas the negro has really got more civil rights than are 
good for' him. He can carry on any legitimate business. In 
proof of this assertion, I would call attention to the fact that 
there are colored gambling-establishments in the larger cities 
in Texas. These establishments are granted the same immu- 
nity from police interference that is allowed the white gambling- 
houses. If a negro has money, or political influence, and he 
commits a murder, his neck is just as safe as that of a white 
man under similar circumstances. 

As far as depriving the negro of his vote is concerned, white 
Democrats have no such desire. On the contrary, they some- 
times encourage the colored voter to vote as often, and in as 
many different places, as is possible on election-day. Is this 
what you call bulldozing the poor colored man ? 

In conclusion, I will state that there is in Texas a disposition, 
on the part of some of the most influential Democrats, to do 
every thing in their power to improve the colored race ; and 
the fact that in the larger cities, and particularly in Houston, 
many of the negroes are nearly white, should certainly con- 
vince the most sceptical that there is no prejudice against the 
race. 

In a pasture near Austin we saw about twenty camels. In 
our journeyings* through Texas we had seen many strange 
things, but nothing so strange and foreign as a camel-rancho. 
To meet a camel in a menagerie is not surprising ; but to 
come suddenly on a herd of camels, quietly grazing on an 
American prairie, is certainly startling. 

In 1857 the United-States Government purchased forty 
camels in Asia Minor, and brought them to the United States. 
This was in accordance with an Act of Congress, appropriating 
a certain amount to enable the secretary of war to try the 
experiment of introducing camels on this continent as beasts 
of burden, and for military purposes. The pacha of the dis- 
trict from which they were shipped presented ten camels to the 
United States. In May, 1857, the fifty camels, with Greek 
and Arab attendants, reached the port of Indianola, Tex., in 
the United-States store-ship "Supply." 

The camels were first used in transporting stores over the 



638 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

Staked Plains and the Journada de Muerte (Journey of Death), 
for the surveying-parties under command of Gen. J. E. Johnston, 
then commanding the department of Texas. In four years the 
original fifty had increased, by birth, to one hundred and twenty. 

In 1 86 1 the Confederates seized the camels at Camp Verde, 
and, during the war, used them in carrying cotton to Mexico. 
Each camel carried two bales of cotton. After the war the 
United-States Government again took possession of the camels, 
and sold them in three lots. Those that we saw were being- 
bred and raised fort sale, the purchasers being circus and mena- 
gerie men. The price of a good Texas-raised camel is about 
two hundred and fifty dollars. 

The Texas camel is a voracious feeder. His principal food 
is the prickly leaves of the cactus, and the beans of the mes- 
quite-tree ; but he does not confine himself altogether to a 
vegetable diet. When opportunity offers, he will reach up 
after the glass insulators of a lightning-rod or telegraph-pole, 
and conceal them in his commissary, or he will stand by the 
hour meekly chewing up a wagon-sheet, when he cannot get a 
chance to eat the well-rope or a wheelbarrow. 

A camel will carry a man ninety miles from daylight to dark ; 
but either the camel or the man requires to be well padded, or 
the rider will succumb under the fatigue consequent on the 
jolting motion of the brute. 

The chief objection to using camels as beasts of burden in 
Texas is, that horses usually run away at sight of them. This 
is bad for the horses, and worse for the pilot of the camel if 
the owner of the horses should have his pistol with him. 

The prickly-pear, on which the camel feeds, belongs to the 
slab-sided, razor-back breed of cactus. It can be found in 
Texas on the Rio Grande, where there is a strip of territory, 
sixty miles long and about twenty wide, on which nothing else 
grows but prickly-pears ; and so thick are they, that the traveller 
cannot leave the road, which is hedged in by them. When a 
Western-Texan, who has seen prickly-pears every day of his 
life, afterwards happens to travel in Europe, and is shown, as a 
great curiosity, one sickly little prickly-pear plant in a flower- 
pot, it makes him laugh away down in his boots. 



ARRIVAL IN AUSTIN. 



639 



In order to flourish luxuriantly, the prickly-pear asks for a 
semi-tropical climate and a poor soil. The more tropical the 
climate, and the poorer the soil, the bigger and higher the plant 
grows, and the more thorns it has to the square inch. Over in 
Mexico, where the soil is poorer than an amateur concert, the 
prickly-pear grows six feet high, and the leaves are as big as 
those of an extension-table ; while in Texas it only grows of a 
convenient length to sit down on. 

There are some purposes that the prickly-pear is good for, 
and there are others for which it is not. The fruit, which is 
about the size and shape of a hen's ^%%, is of a rich purple 
color. It looks as if it might have a delicious taste, but a 
moderately fastidious hog 
would elevate his nose at 
it. The plant is covered 
with long, keen needles of 
assorted sizes, that, for 
sharpness and meanness, 
may well cause the blush 
of shame and envy to man- 
tle the cheek of a wasp. ^ 
Never sit down on the 
prickly-pear bush to rest 
yourself. Take my word 
for it. I tried it once accidentally. It was many years ago, 
but the memory of it haunts me still. 

The prickly-pear is useful to man and beast. It can be 
fed to cattle in an emergency, after first burning off the 
thorns. As a poultice for sores and wounds, it is unri- 
valled. 

The doctor, the reporter, the old hunter, and myself arrived 
in Austin at noon, on a cool, breezy day. The doctor and I 
put our mustangs in the hands of an auctioneer, and then 
placed ourselves in the hands of the owner of a clothing- 
store. 

We hardly recognized each other when we got clothed in 
the garments of civilization. I detected quite a respectful 
tone in the doctor's first remarks to me after I had put on a 







THE CACTUS. 



640 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

turned-down collar. We were actually polite to each other for 
an hour afterwards. 

Our little ponies, that had carried us so far and served us so 
well, were tied in front of the auctioneer's store.* A placard 
hanging on the back of each informed the public that they 
were for sale. During the hour we staid at the auctioneer's 
place of business, we could have disposed of the ponies twenty 
times. No one offered us any money for them, but twenty men 
offered us twenty different " trades." One man had a miscella- 
neous lot of kitchen furniture, that he offered to trade for the 
ponies : and another wanted to trade to the doctor an eight- 
horse power threshing-machine for his mustang ; that is, he 
offered to let the doctor have the machine for four hundred 
dollars, taking the pony at twenty-five dollars, and the balance 
in cash. As we were not prepared to begin house-keeping, and 
had no small grain-crop to harvest, we declined these trades. 

The auctioneer's assistant rang a bell ; and the auctioneer, rid- 
ing one of the ponies and leading the other, howled around the 
street until fifty dollars had been offered and accepted for both 
animals. It was very affecting — our parting with the two 
mustangs. We remembered the many hard thoughts we had 
of them at different times during our journey, and remorse 
was our portion. 

The scenery around Austin is the most beautiful and pictur- 
esque in Texas. The city is built on a number of hills, and is 
surrounded by a circle of higher hills, clothed with the ever- 
green cedar, and crowned with rugged rocks. The Colorado 
River winds out and in among these hills, and sweeps around 
the southern part of the city. 

Austin claims a population of ten to twelve thousand. The 
stores and public buildings are almost all of limestone. Con- 
gress Avenue, the principal street of the city, runs from the 
river to the Capitol, and is very broad and level. To a man 
who has lived in San Antonio, Congress Avenue looks like a 
prairie. 

A San-Antonian, who had for years climbed the precipitous 
pavements of the Alamo City, once visited Austin, and was 
very much disgusted with the ridiculously smooth, broad side- 



THE CAPITAL OF THE STATE OF TEXAS. 64 1 



walks. Unexpectedly, however, he came to a place where a 
rock house was in process of construction. Irregularly-shaped 
pieces of rock were lying about (just as I am lying about it), 
from the size of a wardrobe down to that of a small pocket- 
edition of the New Testament. The San-Antonian was de- 
lighted, and kept stumbling 
about, sitting down when he 
.didn't expect to, and enjoy- 
ing himself for half an hour. 
As he finally limped off, with 
a sprained ankle, in the di- 
rection of a drug-store, he 
exclamed, " This is glorious ! 
Now I feel as if I was at 
home, — as if I had been 
promenading on Commerce 
Street in San Antonio." 

The view from the Capitol 
Hill is beautiful, unless you 
allow your gaze to rest on 
the Capitol itself,^ — a mira- 
cle of architectural absurdity, 
that, at a distance, looks like 
a corn-crib with the half of a 
large watermelon on top of 
it. When you come nearer, 
after making this compari- . 
son, you feel like apologizing '- 
to the corn-crib. 

Standing at the entrance 
of the State House is a mon- 
ument to the heroes of the Alamo. Its base is constructed 
of stones taken from the Alamo building, the upper part is 
made of plaster of Paris, and the whole structure is only about 
ten feet high. The monument bears the following inscrip- 
tions : — 

' When we visited Austin, and when this chapter was written, the old Capitol was still 
standing. It was shortly afterwards destroyed by fire. 
41 




THE ALAMO MONUMENT. 



642 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



TO THE GOD OF THE FEARLESS AND FREE 

IS DEDICATED THIS ALTAR, 

MADE FROM THE RUINS OF THE ALAMO, 

MARCH, A.D. 1836. 



BLOOD OF HEROES HATH STAINED ME: 

LET THE STONES OF THE ALAMO SPEAK, THAT THEIR 

IMMOLATION BE NOT FORGOTTEN. 



BE THEY ENROLLED WITH LEONIDAS IN THE HOST 
OF THE MIGHTY DEAD. 



THERMOPYLAE HAD HER MESSENGER OF DEFEAT: 
THE ALAMO HAD NONE. 



CROCKETT. BONHAM. TRAVIS. BOWIE. 



Texas should be as much ashamed of this petty monument 
as of the fact that the Alamo itself is rented to a merchant who 
stores miscellaneous groceries in it. 

The interior of the Texas Capitol is in a very dilapidated condi- 
tion, — the floors 
are damp; the 
walls are cracked ; 
the plaster has 
fallen off in many 
places ; and hun- 
dreds of bats in- 
habit the legisla- 
tive halls, and fly 
above the heads 
of the Texas 
statesmen. 

Three million 
acres of land in 
Texas have been 
appropriated to be used in building a new State House. It is 
to be an immense building, with a frontage of five hundred 
and sixty-six feet, and a height of three hundred and eleven 




OLD STATE HOUSE, AUSTIN, TEX. 



SAM HOUSTON. 643 

feet from foundation to top of dome. It may therefore be 
reasonably expected, that, at no distant day, Texas will have 
the finest State Capitol in the United States. 

There are half a dozen oil paintings in the Capitol. On the 
wall in the House, to the right of the Speaker's chair, is a large 
picture of Gen. Sam Houston. He is sitting down, with his 
hat and cane in his hands, enveloped in the ample folds of a 
large cloak. The likeness is said to be excellent. It agrees 
exactly with the kind of a man Houston was. You see a face 
full of intense energy, amounting almost to savagery; a bold, 
fearless glance ; and, above all, you perceive in the lines of the 
lips the evidences of determination and a strong will. There 
can be no hesitation in pronouncing the verdict, — here is a 

natural-born ruler of men. 

« 

In the Senate, on the opposite side of the President's chair, 
is a large oil painting of Washington. It is the' stereotyped 
picture you have seen all your life, — one hand holding a 
sheathed sword, while, with the other, he makes a motion which 
may either refer to his refusal to act on a petition to commute, 
that lies on the table; or may be intended to scare off the 
impetuous bootblacks with which Austin is infested ; or may 
mean, ''No, gentlemen, I make it a point never to enter a 
saloon by daylight." Everybody may suit himself as to what 
the gesture means. The face of the father of his country has 
evidently been taken from a three-cent postage-stamp. 

There is also a picture of Gen. Tom Green, — a fine, manly 
face, in which frankness and tenderness are touchingly blended. 
From the Senate I went over to the House. Imagine my con- 
sternation at seeing Washington, whom a moment before I had 
left in the Senate gesticulating at the bootblacks, standing on 
guard, in identically the same position, to the left of the speaker 
of the House. There could be no mistake about it. There was 
the tall, commanding figure, the same postage-stamp cast of 
features, the same defiant refusal to commute, or whatever the 
gesture might mean, only he had changed some of his clothes. 

'' How many George Washingtons do you keep on the 
premises at one time .? " I asked of a legislator, pointing to the 
picture. 



644 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

** That's not Washington: that's Sam Houston," he repUed. 

So it was ; but the father of Texas in this picture was cer- 
tainly dressed to imitate the father of the United States. 

There is also a life-size painting representing David Crock- 
ett dressed in buckskin, and accompanied by a rifle and two 
dogs. The dogs look natural enough, and there is a great deal 
of fidelity to life in the rifle ; but, when it comes to David him- 
self, there is something wrong. Here, in the full blaze of the 
nineteenth century, are we to suppose that David Crockett, for 
whom even hungry **bars" had an intuitive awe, actually 
parted his hair in the middle, like the effeminate youth of the 
present day who sucks the end of a cane } What a vast amount 
of trouble in hunting enough remains together to hold an 
inquest on, the coroner would have, if the original David 
Crockett were to appear in the flesh, and meet by chance the 
imaginative artist who painted his picture ! The mouth is sa 
large that it looks as if it might have been partial to water- 
melons. 

The most prominent figure in the Texas revolution, on the 
side of the Texans, was Gen. Sam Houston. A history of 
Texas without Sam Houston would be as the Book of Exodus, 
without Moses. If the life of Houston were written as it 
should be written, it would excel in interest the most thrilling 
romance that was ever penned. The following is a bare 
outline : — 

Sam Houston was born in Rockbridge County, Va., March 2, 
1793. His ancestors, both on his father's and mother's side, 
were Scotch-Irish. They emigrated from the north of Ireland 
to Pennsylvania about the year 1688. Sam inherited the fine 
physique, the courage, the enterprise, and the firmness, — some 
called it obstinacy, — that are some of the physical, moral, and 
intellectual qualities that the race he came from are generally 
credited with possessing. Houston's father fought in the war 
of 1776. He was a man of but moderate means; and young 
Sam was kept at work on the farm until he was thirteen years 
of age, without any educational privileges, except so much as 
he could take advantage of at the little country school during 
the winter season. 



SAM HOUSTON, 645 

He preferred tracking rabbits to tracing* geometrical lines, 
searching for signs of deer in the forest to searching for Latin 
roots in the school-books, and he liked better the study of 
natural history in the woods than the study of the rules of 
grammar in the school. Probably twelve months in all would 
be an excessive estimate of the time Houston attended school. 
When he was thirteen years of age his father died ; and shortly 
afterwards his mother, with a family of nine children, emi- 
grated to Tennessee, then a frontier country. The Houston 
family located near the boundary-line between the white set- 
tlers and the Cherokee Indians. Sam worked on his mother's 
farm, and went to school at intervals. During this time he 
found a stray copy of Pope's translation of the Iliad, and 
became so enamoured of its heroic recitals, that he asked to be 
allowed to learn the language in which the Iliad was originally 
written. His mother, having probably little faith in the utility 
of such learning, refused her consent ; whereupon the future 
soldier and statesman swore he would never, while he lived, 
recite another lesson. On his refusal to return to school, his 
brother compelled him to serve in a stoj;e. The confinement 
incident to the life of a clerk in a county store did not suit 
him ; and the result was, that he suddenly disappeared, and, 
when next heard of, was living with the Cherokee Indians. 
He lived some three or four years with the Indians, conforming 
to all their customs and habits, and being acknowledged by the 
chief of the tribe as an adopted son. 

He continued to live with the Indians until he was eighteen 
years of age, once or twice a year visiting the white settlements 
to make purchases of clothes, ammunition, etc. During these 
visits he incurred a debt which he was anxious to pay. That 
he might obtain the means to pay his indebtedness, he deter- 
mined to go back to the settlements, and teach school. For a 
boy of the scant scholastic training that Houston had, to pro- 
pose to teach others, seems an absurdity. To some, education 
is not a matter of rod and book ; and great things can be done, 
and seemingly insurmountable obstacles overcome, by one who 
has self-confidence and determination : therefore, when Hous- 
ton's character is takeninto account, and his determination to 



646 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



do the thing he attempted to do is considered, it will not seem 
such an extraordinary matter that he succeeded, and that he 
soon had more pupils in his school than he could give attention 
to. His pupils paid him eight dollars a year, payable, one-third 
in corn, one-third in calico, and one-third in cash. He closed his. 
school as soon as he had earned a sufficient amount wherewith 

to pay his debts.. 
In 181 3 Hous- 
ton enlisted in 
the United- 
States army as 
a private. He 
was soon pro- 
moted to be 
drill-sergeant. 
He d i s t i n - 
guished himself 
in the war 
against the 
Creeks, and was 
commissioned 
as an ensign. At 
the battle of 
Horse Shoe 
Houston was 
the second to 
scale the breast- 
works, behind 
which were in- 
trenched a thousand Indians. He was shot through the leg 
with a barbed arrow. The arrow was pulled out with difficulty, 
and left a wound that did not heal for years. When Gen. Jack- 
son learned that Houston was wounded, he ordered him to the 
rear ; but Houston refused to remain inactive, and again re- 
turned to the front in time to take part in another charge, in 
which he fought until he was shot twice in the shoulder. 

He remained in the army until 18 17, when he was appointed 
Indian agent to the Cherokees, but shortly afterwards resigned 




SAM HOUSTON. 



647 



this office, owing to some misunderstanding with the govern- 
ment. He began the practice of law in Lebanon, Tenn., when 
he was twenty-five years of age, and in a few months after- 
wards was elected district-attorney. In 1823 he was elected to 
Congress without opposition, and re-elected in 1825. In 1827 
he was elected governor of Tennessee by over twelve thousand 
majority. During his term of office as governor, he married 
Miss Allen, a lady of good family and estimable character. A 
few months after his marriage he sent his resignation to the 
secretary. of state, left his wife, and went back to his wild life 
among the Cherokees. He remained with the Indians some 
three years. In 1832-33 he arrived in Texas, and began the 
practice of law at San Augustine. 

When the war between the Texans and Mexicans broke out, 
Houston was elected commander-in-chief of the army. 

He led the army in person at the battle of San Jacinto, 
where he captured Santa Anna, president of Mexico. 

Houston was then elected president of the Republic. After 
the annexation of Texas, he represented Texas in the United- 
States Senate. He was subsequently elected governor of 
•Texas, and died at Huntsville, Tex., in August, 1863. 







648 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 







LATE years it has come to be 
acknowledged that. Texas is 
the broadest, widest, deepest, 
and most intensely gorgeous 
State in the Union. Her cat- 
tle are upon a thousand hills, 
and there are more than ten 
thousand cattle to a hill ; her 
historic battle-fields are more numerous, and every field more 
gory, than those of other lands ; her rattlesnakes have more 
rattles, and the rattles are bigger, than those of the snakes of 
other climes ; her bayous and swamps produce more ague than 
those of other countries, and there are ten per cent more shakes 
to the ague ; her sons can swear deeper and yell louder than 
the army in Flanders ; and her daughters, in equestrian exer- 
cises, a la clothespin, are said to equal the Amazons of old : 
but it is not on these things that Texas rests her claim to be 
the top rail of the fence in the federation of States. 

Latent poetic genius, that has been slumbering in the breast 
of one of her daughters, has been discovered, and, with some 
little encouragement, has burst into an incandescent flame of 
poetic fire, culminating in "The Spinning Song, and Other 
Pieces,"-by Mrs. P. C. Allison, Austin (Texas Capital, Pub.), — 
a book that I picked up while at Austin. 

England boasts her Shakspeare ; Germany, Goethe ; Ireland, 
Moore ; Michigan, the " Sweet Singer ; " and in the days that 
are to come, Texas, with her fifty million inhabitants, will boast 
of her Allison ; and once a year her citizens will celebrate the 
natal day of a poetess, who, to use her own language, *' knocked 
'em all." 



A SWEET SINGER. 649 

This poetess — whose gems of inspiration, clothed in the exu- 
berant fancy and language of the gods, are destined to scintil- 
late through the realms of thought, and grow brighter and 
brighter as future ages learn to appreciate their worth, — this 
female genius — first saw the light in Travis County, Tex., in 
18 — . Her early life is shrouded in mystery. Enough, how- 
ever, is known, to indicate that she exhibited signs of budding 
genius at any early age ; but it was not until mellow middle 
age that she ''dropped into poetry." A happy inspiration 
turned her thoughts to the muse. That she took the step 
beheving she was fulfilling her mission, is evident. Hear her 
defence of the poets : — 

" There's nothing wrong in making a song: 
It don't take long, if wit and learning's strong. 
If you've wit and education, though poor your situation, 
There's nothing in creation will give you a better recommendation. 
A good grammar scholar is a head out of hollow, 
If they don't own a dollar, but half enough to swallow." 

Here she affirms at the outset that the maker of a sons: is 
not necessarily guilty of any transgression. *' It don't take 
long." See-the superiority of the genius of our poetess ! We 
have been taught to believe that all the great poets labored 
hard, and burned the midnight oil, as they laboriously measured 
their verses off by the feet ; but our poetess scorns this tradi- 
tional snail's pace, and possesses so much of the divine afflatus 
that she just runs poetry off by the yard as it were, and can 
afford to throw in (as she does) a few extra feet in some lines 
for good measure. 

In this age of slipshod English, it is gratifying to find a 
great mind presenting so forcibly' the advantages of a gram- 
matical education. How could the grand truth be more 
strongly presented than in the touching stanza just quoted.^ 
And how comforting the lesson of the world-without-end, ever- 
lasting justice and equilibrium of circumstances taught in the 
assertion, that, even if the proficient grammarian is lacking in 
pecuniary resources, yet still he has the satisfaction of feeling 
that he ''is a head out of hollow" ! 

In keeping with the foregoing is the sentiment in the follow- 



650 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

ing, which we quote from one of the song-gems contained in 
the volume : — 

" If we are asked to another, we must go if its further, 
Assist a brother, or a neighbor, or a mother. 
If we show we are tight, they'll treat us right ; 
They'll quit us quite, feel inclined to slight." 

Worthy of our admiration is the childlike confidence in her 
fellows, shown by the great and trusting heart of this woman. 
"If," she says, *' we show we are tight, they will treat us right." 
Even in the powerless condition of inebriation she will trust 
herself in their hands, feeling confident that they will conduct 
themselves toward her with rectitude, as it were. 

In the ballad of the '* Conscript " we find this pearl : — 

" We are like a swarm of bees that has lost their king, 
Though we will humble to our knees ; and to God let us sing. 
And I claim that home for mine. [The chorus.] 
Like wine in a bowl that's set and lost it sever. 
If God will take my soul, welcome, Yankees, to my liver." 

See the strong vein of piety that runs through these lines. 
The martyrs of old, at the stake, were oblivious of their sur- 
roundings, and cared not for the future disposition of their 
anatomy, when the fire was kindled, and their last chance to 
bribe the sheriff or break jail was gone. With some such feel- 
ing, with her heart full of forgiveness to her enemies, and with 
unheard-of generosity, does our poetess close the pious chorus, 
with a free offer of her liver to the foe. Instead of the morbid 
melancholy that characterizes most of the world's great poems, 
we find a cheerful spirit predominant in all the works of this 
wonderful woman. Witness the following : — 

" I am resolved to end my life in quietness and peace ; 
So, when I'm called to leave, no strife, but cheerfully decease." 

Even the grim tyrant cannot rob her of her peace and equa- 
nimity. She is resolved to face the old scythe-man himself, 
and ** decease" in a manner characteristic of the cheerfulness 
of her life and writings. With that delightful air of uncon- 
ventionality and frankness to be found only in the land of the 



GEMS OF FANCY, 65 I 

setting sun, she speaks of her enemies, disdaining to conciliate 
the foe : — 

" If I'm killed by a Yankee, F'm killed by a foe ; 
Would God give thanky to them that do so ? 
If I lose a few days here, I'll gain them there; 
I'll live in safer care, have better fare." 

The air of resignation and the spirit of faith that are ex- 
pressed here in terms of lyric fervor is something worthy of 
commendation. By the act of the enemy she may lose a few 
days here ; but she is content to do so, for will she not gain 
them there, where, as she claims, the fare is of a superior 
quality } 

Among the meteors of fancy that flash through the pages of 
the volume, we find a graphic description of the death of an 
officer on duty. I quote a few lines : — 

" A noble officer of Lockhart town, that never bled a heart 
(He now is sleeping under ground, from many friends did part). 
On July 7 some distance went, his duty to fulfil. 
A dreadful ball, with vengeance sent, the noble man did kill. 
He'd captured the object of pursuit, his visible arms laid down ; 
But one was hidden inhis boot — unfortunately, never found. 
Preparing for to make him fast, he asked to take a chew ; 
Quick his hand his pocket past, the deathly weapon drew, 
Murdered him quick as thought: in death the victim fell; 
No sight of wife or mother caught, as he sighed to the world farewell." 

See the minuteness of detail in this hair-curdling description 
of a desperate deed. Who but a master-mind would have 
thought of mentioning that ordinary but significant incident on 
which, probably, the after-fate of the murderer hung, — "he 
asked — he asked to take a chew " 1 

It is evident that the writer had but two objects in view when 
she published this little volume. First, she saw that there was 
an aching void in literature that wanted filling, and she deter- 
mined to fill it with useful truths and moral facts ; for morality 
is the strong point — the head and front, as it were — of these 
poems. Again, she desired to add to her depleted exchequer 
so much of this world's dross as might accrue from the sale of 



652 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

her poems ; for, though a good grammar scholar, and, as a con- 
sequence, satisfied even if she "don't own a dollar," yet she 
had learned from experience that a little money lubricates the 
cares of life. 

The cheerful, not to say hilarious, poetry of Mrs. Allison is 
in marked contrast with the dolorous literature that passes 
current for poetry in this age. 

Most of the poetry manufactured in the present day is written 
by women. A marked feature of almost all of it is gloom and 
low-spirited woe. There is nothing cheerful about it. Women 
never pen a joyous carol or a merry lay. They confine them- 
selves to raking up the cold ashes of a dismal past, and harrow- 
ing our feelings with dolorous prophecies regarding a joyless 
and insolvent future. This would lead one to believe that the 
average poetess is bilious ; but such is not the case. I have 
known some women who were the light of their respective 
households, the life of the social circle, — women who would darn 
socks with hilarity, and construct a rag-carpet with exultant 
glee, — women whose buoyant spirits were as sunshine in their 
homes ; and yet these same women, when they sat down with 
pen in hand, and when the poetry began to boil up inside them, 
would become unhappy, and be filled with gnawing sorrow, 
bitter grief, and a brand of misery that would register away up 
above proof. 

The first thing a poetess who thinks she understands her 
business does, is to go back into the storeroom of her memory, 
and resurrect some corroding care or effete heartache that 
should have been thrown out into the alley long ago. She 
ponders over this until a gloomy anguish takes possession of 
her, her heart begins to bleed, and severe pangs of unhappiness 
course through her veins. Her whole being becomes permeated 
with a mournful sadness, and an army-sized wail begins strug- 
gling to get out of her. Then she is ready for business ; and 
the poetry begins to flow in short-metre lamentations about 
how cold and drear every thing is, and how much she pines for 
solitude and death ; and, as she warms to her work, she will 
probably have something to say about "faded flowers," "leaf- 
less boughs," "blasted hopes," and "a hollow world." 



\ 
\ 



A MISPLACED POLICE-STATION. 653 

There is too much of this unshed-tear style of poetry going 
around. We know that the world is hollow, and that it is a 
fleeting show, and that women are fickle, and that all men are 
liars, and that fife is but a weary interlude, and that death will 
be a relief (especially from this class of poetry) ; but Job and 
David and Solomon told us all that long ago, and I protest 
against these time-worn and dismal truisms being repeated 
every hour, and thrust on me with all their defective rhyme, 
halting rhythm, and no reason at all. 

Let there be a revolution in this matter, and the world will 
be all the better for it. Let us have something cheerful, — 
some poetry with hope and joy and gladness in it. Although 
the rose has thorns, don't grieve over that, but rather remember 
that it has beauty and a sweet odor. Banish the clouds, sweep 
out the dead autumn leaves, and give us sunshine and budding- 
flowers. 

I noticed one very peculiar feature about Austin. The 
police-station is up on the top of a mountain, while the saloons 
are all down in the valleys. I seriously contemplated address- 
ing a communication to the mayor, calling his attention to how 
much better it would be to have the saloons on the top of the 
mountains, and the lockup down in the valley. Everybody has 
seen how hard it is sometimes to induce an intoxicated reveller 
to go to the lockup, even when it is quite handy to the saloon, 
and on the same level : therefore, what a wear and tear it must 
be, on the police and their clothes, to persuade an intoxicated 
man to climb up a mountain at an angle of worse than forty-five 
degrees ! In fact, it would seem impossible, unless the saloon 
below was connected with the lockup with a pulley and a long 
rope ; and then there would be no fun in it. On the other hand, 
if the saloons were upon the dizzy mountain-heights, and the 
lockup down below, all the police would have to do would be to 
take the reveller, and drop him down into the jail-yard. The 
distance, as the crow flies, is only a few hundred feet : so, with a 
little practice, a policeman could hit the jail with an inebriate 
nine times out of ten. And yet here these simple people have 
been bringing men to the lockup with a derrick for the last 
forty years. On reflection, I have come to the conclusion that 



654 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



saloons are low places, anyhow. Still, I am not dictating to 
the Austin city council. They may have their reasons'' for 
keeping the saloons where they are. 

I believe I stated that Austin is a city of ups and downs, and 
this is the case in more respects than one. I will try and ex- 
plain. I was driving out with a gentleman who lived in Austin. 

I noticed that 
the houses 
were very 
neat, and I 
called his at- 
tention to one 
very pretty 
little cottage. 
"Yes," re- 
sponded my 
companion. 
"Poor fellow! 
he could not 
build much of 
a house : he 
paid fi f t y 
cents when 
he failed. 
Just wait un- 
til I show you 
the mansion 
of a fellow 
who failed on 
fifteen cents 
on the dollar." 
Pretty soon 
I saw a fine-looking house with spacious grounds, and I was 
told that the owner paid thirty cents on the dollar. At last we 
came to a palatial residence. The house was of cut stone ; the 
windows were of plate-glass. There were fountains and flowers 
and shrubbery. In short, the property was worth probably fifty 
thousand dollars. The owner, as soon as he had it built and 




SCENERY ON THE COLORADO, NEAR AUSTIN. 



VICTORIA R. 655 

furnished, failed, paying ten cents on the dollar. As I said, 
Austin is full of ups and downs. 

One of the most interesting things I saw while at Austin 
was the treaty between England and the Republic of Texas. 
It is not a very voluminous document, but it is gotten up in 
gorgeous style. It is in a box by itself, has blue and red 
ribbons, and the signature of Queen Victoria attached to it. 
The treaty w^as signed by Victoria on the 25th of May, 1842, 
just about the time Wales was busy getting his teeth at Buck- 
ingham Palace. The handwriting is rather large for a lady. 
Queen Victoria signs herself familiarly "Victoria R.," the "R" 
being provided with a downward flourish, as much as to say, 
"Thank goodness, that's done." The letters, being more regu- 
lar than round, look as if written by a German. I think I 
know how that occurred. It was just after breakfast in Buck- 
ingham Palace, when a knock was heard at the door. Victoria, 
thinking it was a sewing-machine agent, peeped through the 
shutters, and perceived Lord Palmerston with the treaty in his 
hand. She instantly rushed to the back door, and called out, 
" You, Albert ! oh, you, Albert von Coburg Gotha Sigamarin 
von Kuhschwappel Moltenburg, come here this minit ! " And 
upon his coming up she told him, "Here's Palmerston, and 
that treaty with the savages in Texas, and I hain't got the 
breakfast-dishes washed, nor my hair done up, and Wales is 
howling for his — for his nourishment. Do, Albert von Gotha, 
take Palmerston into the parlor, and sign that thing for me : 
that's a good feller." And it was his duty, and he djd it. 
That accounts for the peculiarities in the signature. In the 
treaty the word "republic" is spelled "republick." 

But the seal was what surprised me. It was staked out to 
the treaty with two ribbons, and was in a round tin box as big 
as a dinner-bucket. You took off the cover, and there was 
the seal in yellow wax : but, owing to the inclemency of the 
weather, the wax had run ; and that imposing female, Britannia, 
armed with a pitchfork, was mixed up so with the lion and the 
unicorn, that you couldn't tell them apart. I didn't try. 

I was ^so shown the treaty with France. It, too, had a seal 
that would require a dray to move. Louis Philippe's signature 



656 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



is gorgeous. It looks as if he had given the whole of his mind 
to it. 

The king of the Netherlands signs himself simply ''Wil- 
liam," with a flourish that looks like a window-shutter struck 
by lightning. 

The treaty of annexation is there too. I hope Daniel Web- 
ster can prove an alibi ; but the average juryman would decide 
that he was guilty of having just dined before he signed his 
name to it. John C. Calhoun's signature is a very modest one. 

He could 
write a book 
with the ink 
Louis Phi- 
lippe used. 

I went to 
seethe Legis- 
lature when 
in session, 
and obtained 
some inter- 



estmg statis- 
tics. 

There were 
seven t een 
members in 
their shirt- 
sleeves, of 
whom fi ve, 
had their vests off. There were two who had their boots off, 
and thirteen were smoking. There were three who seemed to 
be asleep, and two were snoring in different voices. I don't 
blame them much for that. The question arises. Why should 
not the members be required to treat the Speaker with the 
same courtesy that they expect of him .? What would the 
members think if the Speaker had a cigar in his mouth, and 
spent half the time holding up his feet for them to inspect the 
bottom of his boots ? » 

After you have conversed with legislators, and listened to 




A SPIRITED DEBATE IN THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE. 



LEGISLATIVE DIGNITY. 



657 



th^ row going on at the Capitol, you insensibly absorb, not only 
a great deal of crude wisdom, but a wealth of parliamentary 
slang. After I had listened to a spirited debate in the House, 
I went to my hotel, or rather the hotel I was stopping at, for 
dinner. I ordered some soup ; and the waiter, owing to a 
pressure of business I suppose, forgot to bring it. I arose to 
a point of order, and moved the previous question. He under- 
stood what I meant, for he moved to lay it on the table at once. 
A man who was eating at the same table asked me to pass the 
butter ; and, without thinking what I was saying, I told him he 
could get 
nothing 
passed unless 



there was a 
quorum pres- 
ent. If he de- 
sired, I would 
have the rolls 
(nice " warm 
French 
rolls") called. 
He looked at 
me rather 
hard, and 
moved his 
seat nearer to 
the door, so 

that he could get out quickly. He thought I was crazy, but I 
wasn't. I had only been listening to the proceedings in the 
House. 

Another fellow wanted some bread ; and he, too, looked as if 
there was some ambiguity in my language, when I told him he 
ought to apply to his local representative, or he might refer the 
matter to the gentleman from Africa, who had the floor, and 
who was chairman of the board at that hotel. 

I heard him afterwards tell the hotel-clerk that it was a shame 
that my relatives allowed me to wander about, making a fool of 
myself; but he supposed there was no room in the lunatic- 
42 




THE GENTLEMAN FROM AFRICA HAD THE FLOOR. 



658 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

asylum. A man who was eating a large watermelon on the 
opposite side of the table asked me what I thought of the 
Legislature ; and he seemed somewhat surprised when I replied 
mechanically, "■ I think it might pass, if every thing after the 
enacting clause were stricken out." 

After I got through with dinner, and sauntered out into the 
hall, I was waited on by a delegation of newsboys, each one of 
whom presented me with a copy of the local paper ; and, when 
they wanted a nickel, I thoughtlessly told them that there was 
no chance of their bill passing, unless it was tacked on to the 
general deficiency. As they still clamored for nickels, I in- 
formed them that the appropriation was exhausted. When I 
was presented with a memorial from the clerk of the hotel at 
which I was boarding, I made a little speech to the effect that 
the bill pass to its second reading, or that we could go into 
executive session and debate the question. The hotel-clerk 
was pretty well up in parliamentary usage ; for he said he should 
consider himself a committee of on^, with authority from the 
governor to veto my baggage. 

Austin is most emphatically a pretty city, perhaps the 
prettiest in Texas. In some respects it has advantages over 
San Antonio. There is, in the first place, the beautiful moun- 
tain scenery. Then the location of the city on a number of 
hills is calculated to please the eye, particularly as these 
heights are crowned with family residences, the architecture of 
which is infinitely superior to that observable in the Alamo 
City. In San Antonio, when a man builds a fine house, he 
selects a piece of ground to fit the house (that is, of about the 
same size) ; and consequently he has to hang the family clothes 
out on the shrubbery in the front yard, the possible object 
being to astonish the passer-by with the amount of under- 
clothing the proud proprietor can boast of. In Austin, however, 
the people do not appear to be so ostentatious (no intentional 
perpetration of a pun is designed) : there appears an unwilling- 
ness to inform the public as to the extent and variety of their 
underwear. Possibly the Austinites do not wear many clothes 
in summer ; but, at any rate, they build their houses on large 
lots, and have ample room for back-yards and clothes-lines. 



A METEOROLOGICAL FACT, 



659 



Like San Antonio, Austin is provided with water-works, ice- 
factories, and street-cars ; also with gas, which, Hke that of the 
former city, is evidently not intended for illuminating-purposes. 

Austin is said to be the hottest place in Texas in the sum- 
mer, and the coldest in winter. The wind does not blow much, 
except on Capitol Hill, where there is an unlimited supply of 
the article, particularly when the Legislature is in session. 
This is a meteorological fact of great significance. It has been 
proposed to utilize this immense natural force in drawing the 
street-cars up to the Capitol, and in extracting water from a 
fourteen-hundred-feet artesian well, one of the minor bores 
that are to be found in that neighborhood. 




66o 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 



CHAPTER XLVII. 




^ Austin we made the acquaintance of 
Major L. B. Johnson. The major has 
a dog — an imported dog. It came 
across the Atlantic, accompanied by a 
document which shows that its father 
was a Gordon setter, out of H ore- 
hound, by Peruvian Bark, dam Borax, 
out of Bromide of Potassium, winner of the Astley stakes, and 
that its mother was a female dog equally rich in distinguished 
ancestors. To look at the brute, and hear its owner talk about 
it, I could not help getting the impression, somehow, that it 
was composed of about one-third restrained appetite, one-third 
dog, and the balance pedigree ; but I anticipate. The major 
called on us, and invited us to come out to his plantation and 
spend a day with him. Then he added, as a glittering induce- 
ment, that, if we would go, he would take his new and imported 
dog out for the first time, and show us what intelligence and 
blood combined, in a game-dog, could accomplish. 

" Has he never caught a rabbit before, major } " I inquired. 
The major was indignant. 

" Of course not, nor behind, either. Why, this is no rabbit- 
dog. He is not a greyhound. Haven't I told you that he is a 
pure Gordon setter } In fact, he is more Gordon than setter, if 
that is possible. Catch a rabbit t Faugh ! Why, my dog is a 
game-dog : an imported dog sets game, you know. If you were 
to sic him at a rabbit, or turn him loose on a cat, he wouldn't 
move a muscle of his eye or a wink of his tail ; but, when it 
comes to partridges and prairie-chickens, he is right there, and 
business all over. A Gordon setter, gentlemen, will set a par- 



THE IMPORTED DOG, 



66 1 




THE START. 



tridge the first time it ever sees a green field, or smells a feather. 
Instinct teaches them. It is hereditary intelligence, that comes 
to them from a long line of trained ancestors. Just as a re- 
triever takes to 
water, or a sheep- 
dog to sheep, so 
a setter takes to 
setting game-birds. 



They don't make 

mistakes. You 

come out, and I'll 

show you." 

We agreed to go, ( 

for we were anxious 

to hunt for quail ; 

not, however, be- 
cause we had lost any quail, or because there was a reward 

offered for any quail that had strayed off and got lost. 

We arrived at Onion Creek at eight a.m., where we formed 

a junction with the Johnson contingent. 

Shutting one eye, and feasting the other on the Gordon 

setter, the major half way 
made up his mind not to take 
the imported animal along. 
" He is too fine, too valuable, 
I tell you, to take out with 
such a dangerous mob as 
this. He might get hurt ; 
and, gentlemen, five hundred 
dollars in gold wouldn't buy 
a fifth interest in that pup. 
As he needs relaxation, how- 
ever, I reckon I'll risk him ; 

but be careful how you shoot, and don't interrupt him when he 

is setting." 

The procession started. It was not long before it halted at 

a mesquite and cactus chaparral, where the major said that he 

knew there must be quail. 




■n^, f^^^kj^/^^ 



THE IMPORTED DOG 



J^;^- 



662 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



"Now, gentlemen, watch him. — Set steady, s-t-e-a-d-y, Duke, 
s-t-e-a-d-y, sir." 

Duke waved his feather-duster tail wildly in the air, barked 
several cheerful and triumphant barks, then holding up his 
nose as if he smelled a rat or saw something brewing in the 
air, which he was determined to nip in the bud, he uttered a 
prolonged howl, and, leaping with a joyous bound into a bunch 
of prickly-pears, he flushed an entire covey of quail, and also a 
jack-rabbit, which he remorselessly pursued across the prairie. 
Major Johnson was also flushed, but perhaps that was the 
effects of the demijohn. 

There was an angry glitter in the corners of the major's 

mouth as he puckered it up, 
and whistled for the imported 
dog to return ; but nobody ex- 
cept the rabbit seemed to have 
any influence with the brute. 

He had got his Gordon up, 
and he was bound to overtake 
the rabbit, or die in his tracks. 
The major started after the 
valuable animal, followed by 
such suggestions as, '* Don't 




DUKE. 



disturb him while he is setting. 
Steady, major, s-t-e-a-d-y! " ''You needn't try, major : you know 
you couldn't sic an imported dog on a rabbit." 

At least half an hour slipped away into eternity before the 
major, accompanied by Duke, returned. He received in silence 
the congratulations of his friends upon the recovery of the 
priceless animal. It was only when his brother, Tiff, who was 
one of the party, in a plug hat and a playful mood asked if the 
rabbit had been captured, that the major displayed emotion. 

He said, '* Tiff, you always were a , and you are not 

improving as you grow older ; " and then he proceeded to cut 
a large sapling, without stating whether it was for Tiff or the 
descendant of the winner of the Astley cup. Then followed 
a painful interview between Major Johnson and the son of 
Horehound by Peruvian Bark. Tiff looked as if a load were 



THE IMPORTED DOG. 



66 



lifted off his mind when he found that the club was for the 
dog. 

It seemed that Duke, in addition to his value as a hunting- 
dog, possessed musical ability. He howled a touching solo 
while the major tapped him with the mesquite sapling ; and the 
audience applauded the major, and soothed him with such re- 
marks as, — 

"Don't hit him on his pedigree, major." 

"He can't help it: it's his hereditary sagacity that makes 
him do it." 

The major got through instructing the dog, with the remark 
that he thought he had given him a lesson he wouldn't forget ; 
and the procession 
moved on. f . '" ( ' ''^^ :'• 

The hunters for 
quail were about to re- 
tire from the business, 
when Duke flushed a 
cow ; and while he, the 
cow, and the major 
formed a moving tab- 
leau out on the prairie 
a mile to the left, the 
excursionists killed 
several quail. But, 
after Duke and his owner rejoined the procession, the same sad 
scenes were enacted over again, the major using his cartridge- 
belt this time, as it had been fully demonstrated that slamming 
the dog against trees, and beating him against the surface of 
the United States, had failed to convey the desired hint. 

It was suggested to the major by his brother, that the pun- 
ishment might alienate the affection of the dog, and that he 
might run away and not return ; but the major replied that he 
had no fears of that, as Duke was very much attached to him. 

A few more quail were shot while the dog was giving his 
attention to other business, but the sport was much retarded 
by the major's interviews with the dog. We seriously contem- 
plated bvying shares in the valuable animal, so that the major 




DON'T HIT HIM ON HIS PEDIGREE, MAJOR. 



664 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

would be prevented from punishing him without a majority 
vote of the stockholders. We compromised, however, by ap- 
pointing a delegation to wait on the major, and suggest that 
next time we came out for a day's sport with that dog, in order 
to save time, either the dog be properly instructed with a crow- 
bar before starting out, or else that the major keep a running 
account of the brute's indiscretions during the hunt, and settle 
up with the setter all at once, after he got home, taking half a 
day and a plank to it. 

The reader will suppose that twenty minutes have elapsed, 
during which time we were seeking refreshments at the wagon, 
when we were startled by an exclamation from the major. 
The dog had made a dead set at something. His tail was as 
straight as a party ticket, and he seemed to take an absorbing 
interest in a bunch of long grass. He was prevailed on by 
encouraging words to attack the bunch of grass. There is 
a moment of breathless excitement, then wild commotion, as a 
small, four-footed animal leaps from its concealment, trips up 
the major, and runs over him in its mad career across the land- 
scape, with Duke in pursuit. A vast solitude of smell sur- 
rounds us, and then we hurriedly start for the wagon. The 
polecat kept on, while the spotted dog still pursued her. In 
addition to the dog flushing the polecat, and the entire party of 
sportsmen being flushed by the cat, the team and wagon had 
been flushed by the combined commotion, and the driver was 
making desperate efforts to prevent them from climbing over 
the horizon. When we at last got into the wagon, and the 
major had recovered his dog, and a large share of the promi- 
nent characteristics of the polecat that came back with him, we 
were gratified to find that the demijohn was one thing that had 
not been flushed. It was the only thing in the country that 
had a natural smell. 

Duke was tied to his owner's cartridge-belt by a short rope, 
to keep him from escaping after any more game. It was a sad 
journey back to town for the major; and the remarks made 
about " hereditary intelligence " in dogs, and the influence of 
''trained ancestors," seemed to pain him. Our return was 
marked by no incident worth mentioning, except the jumping 



THRALL'S HISTORY OF TEXAS. 



665 



of the dog out of the wagon, his object being to flush another 
rabbit. As the dog was very much attached to the major, — by 
a rope, as before stated, — the major accompanied his faithful 
animal. 

Next time I go shooting quail, I shall take several imported 
dogs, if they can be obtained. I find that they add much to 
the interest of the sport. 

While in Austin, I borrowed a history of Texas for the pur- 
pose of verifying some historical dates. It was called "The 
Pictorial History of Texas," and written by the Rev. H. Thrall. 
As a history, 
the book is 
unique. It 
contains 
three hun- 
dred pages 
of compila- 
tions from 
Y o k u m ' s 
" History of 
Texas," one 
hundred 
pages of por- 
traits and bi- 
ogr a p h i c a 1 
sketches of 

old veterans and colonists, whose chief merit seems to have 
been that they furnished names for the new counties created in 
Texas in i860 and 1872. The rest of the books consists of 
descriptions of towns and counties as they existed in 1878. 
But it is the pictorial part of this history that is full of interest 
to the searcher after historic lore, and the true inwardness of 
past events. The appropriateness of some of these illustrations, 
and their bearing on history, might be questioned. Neverthe- 
less, it must interest a foreigner, who seeks acquaintance with 
the history of Texas, when he pays five dollars for Thrall's 
" Pictorial History," and, opening the volume, finds a wood- 
cut representing the unpretentious Masonic Hall at Palestine 




THE DOG WAS VERY MUCH ATTACHED TO THE MAJOR. 



666 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

(corner-stone laid A.D. 1875). When he turns over a few- 
pages, and gazes at the Methodist church at Corpus Christi 
(built by subscription A.D. 18 — ), the artist's close adherence 
to nature will forcibly strike him, as he marks the uniformity 
of the pickets in the fence surrounding the church. These are 
little things, but evidently Mr. Thrall considered them parts of 
the history of a great country. 

The engraving entitled *' Scene on the Comal River" is one of 
the best and most appropriate illustrations I ever saw. In the 
foreground is a neat little sheet of water, with a rotten log 
sticking out of a hole in it. The edge of the water is fringed 
with nondescript trees ; and a small boy, with an unnecessary 
amount of bare legs, is in the act of catching a very large fish. 
This is a good illustration, because it is appropriate to any 
river in the world. No one could prove that it was not a scene 
on the Thames, or a glimpse of the Ganges. Not so fortu- 
nate was Mr. Thrall when he selected the second-hand plate 
that he used to illustrate " A Scene on the Trinity River." 
He inadvertently overlooked the fact that there were some 
palm-trees in the picture, and palm-trees do not grow in Texas. 
So the illustration is not very reliable now ; but it will be in 
the years to come, when the antiquary, unearthing a copy of 
the *' Pictorial History," proves from its pages that back in the 
nineteenth century the climate was tropical, and that palm- 
trees flourished in the United States. Thus it is that history- 
is made. 

A few years ago the people of Texas gave themselves a 
constitution, one of the sections of which reads as follows: 
**The Legislature shall have no power to appropriate any of 
the public money for the establishment and mamtenance of a 
bureau of immigration, or for any purpose of bringing immi- 
grants to this State." 

It is currently believed that the framers of the Texas con- 
stitution had moss two feet in length growing on their backs. 

That such a provision as that quoted is to be found in the 
constitution of the State, is a disgrace to the people of Texas, 
and a painful commentary on their intelligence. I was grati- 
fied to learn that fifty-six thousand voters cast their votes 



THE WANTS OF TEXAS. 667 

against the adoption of the constitution containing the anti- 
immigration clause. 

Texas needs immigration, — there can be no question about 
that, — and the kind of immigrants Texas wants are men who 
will produce something, — men who will add to the intrinsic 
value of the land by c-ultivating and improving it, — men who 
will get up early in the morning, and work six days in the 
week, and who will not think it too much trouble to milk a 
cow, that they may have cream for their coffee, — men who will 
not be content merely to scratch the ground, and make a bare 
living, but who will plough deep, and cultivate the land as the 
rich and productive soil of Texas should be cultivated. Texas 
wants these men to bring with them money enough to buy 
land, fence it, and put it in cultivation, and wants them to have 
ambition enough to aspire to something better in the future 
than a '' corn-bread and fry " diet. 

Texas wants any number of strong, able-bodied men who can 
plough and dig, and sow and reap, — men who are willing to 
accept reasonable wages, and who are neither ashamed nor 
afraid to labor on a farm, drive a team, or work on a cattle or 
sheep ranch, — men who will rent a farm, and who will live 
economically for a year or two, content to use molasses now, 
that they may have butter after a while. 

Texas wants capitalists, — men who have energy and enter- 
prise to utilize the irrigation facilities that most of the rivers 
and streams afford, — men with money to build cotton and 
woollen mills, to run saw-mills, to make leather, to build nar- 
row-gauge railroads, to utilize the immense water-power, and to 
develop the mineral resources of the country. 

Texas wants the farmer, because there are sixty-five million 
acres of land that need cultivating. Texas wants to add to her 
wealth by having cotton, corn, wheat, etc., raised on the sixty- 
five million acres that are now unproductive. 

Political economists claim that the average immigrant is 
indirectly worth to the State he settles in one thousand 
dollars. This valuation of the immigrant is certainly not an 
over-estimation ; for the labor of one man, one year, breaking 
and fencing, will add five hundred dollars to the value of a 



668 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG, 

piece of prairie-land. Every laborer, farmer, and stockman 
will, by his labor, add something to the wealth of the State ; 
they will to some extent increase exports ; and, as a conse- 
quence, every citizen will, either directly or indirectly, be bene- 
fited. It could easily be shown how the merchant, the artisan, 
and the professional man, are all benefited by immigration ; but 
it will be to the land-owner that the most immediate and direct 
profit will accrue. He will sell some of his land to the immi- 
grant, or, if he does not, the value of his land will be enhanced 
by the immigrant settling near it. 

Texas wants the stockman, because he will raise cattle, 
horses, and sheep on the great prairies, where millions of acres 
of grass are now unused ; and, shipping these cattle to foreign 
markets, he will bring back gold, or the necessities and luxuries 
that gold will buy. 

The immigrant who has money enough to buy a farm can 
obtain land in Texas as rich as any in the United States at 
from fifty cents to five dollars an acre, according to location. 
He can buy the land, and pay for it in instalments extending 
over a term of from three to ten years. His farm will not 
need manure during his lifetime. The average yield of Texas 
farming-land per acre, according to statistics carefully com- 
piled and published by the government, is as follows : cotton, 
275 pounds ; wheat, 24I bushels ; corn, 395 bushels ; oats, 56J 
bushels. 

Texas offers the immigrant a climate that will allow of work 
in the fields three hundred and odd days in the year. Texas 
offers work to the poor man who is without money. Farmers 
will give him lodging and board, and pay him good wages, or 
they will rent him all the land he can cultivate, furnish him 
with teams and implements, and a house for his family to live 
in. For his labor they will give him one-half of the crop that 
he may raise. They will furnish him and his family with pro- 
visions, receiving payment for the same out of his share of the 
crop when it is marketed. 

To the stockman, Texas offers grass that is green all the 
year round ; and, for the small sum of from fifty cents to two 
dollars an acre, he can get a deed to the grass and the land it 



THE FUTURE OF TEXAS. 669 

grows on, — a deed that will hold it to him, his heirs and as- 
signs, until Gabriel makes the last grand *' round-up." Texas 
offers a home to the oppressed of all nations, — a home where 
they will be free from the tyranny of landlords, and the arro- 
gance of the alleged superiority of birth, and where they will 
be free men, with a voice in the government of a country des- 
tined to lead the nations of the world. 

We took the train on the Central Railroad at Austin, and we 
rode a day and a night before we crossed the Texas line. All 
along the road the land is rolling prairie, rich and productive. 
The farms are better cultivated than those in Southern Texas ; 
and there are more evidences of thrift and enterprise surround- 
ing them than are to be seen in the southern and western parts 
of the State. 

My last night in Texas was spent in lower berth No. 7, in a 
Pullman car, between Hearne and the gate-city of Texas, — 
Denison. 

I was lying in my berth, looking out at the moonlit land- 
scape, trying to picture to myself the future of the great State 
of Texas ; the man in upper No. 6 was snoring with the regu- 
larity of a death-watch; the porter was turning down the 
lights ; the passenger in the berth above had just retired ; and 
the wheels of the car were reciting that monotonous and sooth- 
ing lullaby, "rickety-clack, rick, rack," — when the wand of 
Morpheus touched me. The noise of the wheels, as they jolted 
and bumped over the worn-out rails of the Central Railroad, 
became more and more indistinct, until I ceased to be con- 
scious of its existence. 

Then there appeared to me the spirit that presides over 
dreams and visions. He invested me with supernatural power 
of vision and of intuition ; and then, taking me by the hand, he 
carried me up above the earth, and, with that absurd incon- 
gruity that characterizes dreams and visions, time and distance 
had no measure. In a few moments we passed over the whole 
length and breadth of Texas ; not the Texas I had known 
before, but the Texas of the year 1950, — Texas with fifteen 
thousand miles of railroads, — Texas with seventy-five million 
acres of corn, cotton, and sugar fields, — Texas with fifteen mil- 



670 ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 

lion inhabitants. I saw cities and towns that had sprung up 
since the century's birth, and become great manufacturing and 
commercial centres. In these cities and towns I heard the 
whir of innumerable cotton-spindles ; the purring sound of 
molten metal, as it was poured into mould and matrix ; the 
clatter of hundreds of sewing-machines, as they made into gar- 
ments the cotton and woollen fabrics manufactured on Texas 
looms. I passed by great buildings, noisy with the rattle of 
machinery that manufactured all manner of articles fashioned 
of iron and steel, and brass and copper. In one city the 
manufacture of pottery and glass was the principal industry : 
in another, it was paper, leather, and agricultural implements. 

We stopped for a moment on the magnificent monument 
erected on Capitol Hill, Austin, in 1895, by the State of Texas, 
to commemorate the heroic deeds done at the Alamo. From 
the summit of this imposing pile, we looked down upon the 
capital of the largest, richest, and politically the most powerful, 
State in the Union. 

An old man stood beside me on the parapet, talking to a boy. 
He said, — 

*' My son, the advantages that surround you should give you 
much cause for thankfulness. When I was your age, a large 
majority of the men who held office, and who made our laws, 
were old fossils, who were fit for little else than to tell lies 
about how honest the citizens of Texas were, and what good 
times they had, in 'the palmy days of the republic' 

"They retarded the growth and progress of the State by 
their moss-backed laws, illiberal policy, and short-sighted states- 
manship ; but, thank God ! these things could only delay, not 
prevent, the progress of a State with the wonderful natural 
advantages that Texas has. In the time I speak of, much of 
our great wealth of public land was squandered. The State 
did very little to educate her children. The doors of the pub- 
lic schools were closed nine months in the year. We had not 
a public library in the State ; and the man who was so ignorant 
that he could not write his name had the same voice in the 
government of the country that the most intelligent citizen 
had. In those days the law said, in substance, that twelve of 



\ 



LEAVING TEXAS, 67 1 

the most ignorant men the sheriff could find were to be selected 
to act as jurors in murder cases; and the courts virtually 
decided that the stealing of a pony was a crime deserving of 
more severe punishment than the killing of a man. Then 
intelligence was transmitted long distances by means of the 
old-fashioned and cumbrous telegraph-wires ; and the best mo- 
tive power we had to run our railroad-trains, and all kinds of 
heavy machinery, was the dangerous and expensive steam- 
power that you have, no doubt, read about. 

'' But you, in this year of grace, have inherited the grand inven- 
tions of the last one hundred years, — inventions that are equal 
in power and usefulness to those of all the preceding years in 
the world's history. The generation now taking hold of the pol- 
itics and business of the State has benefited by the magnificent 
public schools that were established twenty-five years ago. and 
that have been nurtured and perfected by wise legislation since. 
The intelligent, the educated, the best men in the State aspire 
to seats in the legislative halls, and you, therefore, enjoy the 
blessing of intelligent and just laws; and, as a consequence, 
the name of Judge Lynch is now only a tradition. Of all the 
* goodly heritage' that has been bequeathed to you, there is 
nothing that you should be more proud of than the sight that 
greets your eyes as you look over to yonder hill, and see the 
towers and domes and spires of the Texas University, — a seat 
of learning that has no superior, except in age, in the United 
States. My son, you have much, very much, to be thankful for." 
- We left the old man and the boy on the monument, as we 
passed over the State House, built in 1890, and which, in 
beauty of architectural lines, vastness of extent, and richness 
of material, is a great contrast to the old State House that 
formerly stood on the same spot. On, over plains covered with 
waving corn, and past fields white with cotton-bolls, where 
mechanical cotton-pickers were each doing the work that for- 
merly twenty negroes did not do as well, — out to the mining- 
regions of the West, where the hills are pierced, drilled, and 
honey-combed with shaft and tunnel and pit ; where tens of 
thousands of mines are rifling the strongholds of the everlast- 
ing hills of their treasures of gold, silver, copper, coal, and 



672 



ON A MEXICAN MUSTANG. 



iron, — down along the irrigated valleys of the Rio Grande, 
and up the low coast-line of the State, we sweep, until we pause 
for a moment at the city of Galveston, the great seaport of 
Texas. We see fleets of ships from all parts of the world 
anchored at her wharves, and being loaded with cotton and 
wool, corn and wheat, and hundreds of minor products that 
Texas has become famous for. We see the representatives of 
wealth and fashion driving on the magnificent beach, lolling on 
the balconies of the immense hotels, or promenading on the 
iron pier, while we hear the newsboys calling, " Yere's yer 
* Galveston Illustrated Daily News ! ' ^Twenty-four pages fur a 
cent ! " We listen for a moment to the bands playing, and* 
above the roar of the ocean we hear, " Denison ! Passen- 
gers FOR THE North — Twenty minutes for breakfast!" 




LE4g'?9 



lBAg?9 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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